


In All, But Blood - Part 2: Heal, To Fight Longer

by Edo_Hikaro



Series: In All, But Blood (a reboot of Bleach) [2]
Category: Bleach, Bleach (reboot), Original Work
Genre: Acceptance, Advice, Aftermath, Aftermath of Violence, Alternate Canon, Ambiguous/Open Ending, Analysis, Authority Figures, Betrayal, Canon Compliant, Canon Dialogue, Canon Related, Canon Universe, Caretaking, Character Analysis, Dark Past, Desire, Dialogue Heavy, During Canon, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Episode Related, Established Relationship, F/M, Father-Son Relationship, Female Friendship, Forgiveness, Gentleness, Guardian-Ward Relationship, Healing, Implied Relationships, Implied Sexual Content, Implied Slash, Injury Recovery, Inner Dialogue, Internal Conflict, Internal Monologue, Introspection, Investigations, Love, Lovers to Friends, M/M, Major Character Injury, Male-Female Friendship, Medical Examination, Medical Inaccuracies, Memories, Mentor/Protégé, Mentors, Missing Scene, Murder Mystery, Other, Past Relationship(s), Past Violence, Plothole Fill, Power Dynamics, Pre-Canon, Protectiveness, Reflection, Relationship Advice, Resolved Sexual Tension, Rival Relationship, Secrets, Seireitei, Senpai-Kouhai Relationship, Sensuality, Shinigami, Shinigami/Zanpakutou Bond, Teacher-Student Relationship, Tenderness, Treachery, Women In Power, Zanpakutou
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-23
Updated: 2019-03-23
Packaged: 2019-09-05 19:20:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 27,270
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16816840
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Edo_Hikaro/pseuds/Edo_Hikaro
Summary: So, you wish to learn to heal in order to fight longer, ne?the bemused comment of Tenjirou-sensei suddenly echoed in her mind, as if speaking across time and distance.Retsu silently smiled at the unexpected spectre.That has not changed, sensei. But now I fight with more than a sword, and for more than myself,she wordlessly informed the memory.Retsu is wise, but still too much of a warrior and a woman to stay only as a healer for long. When Ukitake is pushed to the extreme of destroying the Soukyoku, she knows she can't stay on the sidelines any longer. Exposing Aizen reawakens her old bloodlust, rekindles her love for Jyuushirou, then an ex-rival returns and she realises that the past is best left in the past.Best read with Part 1 for full flavour😉Best see Story Notes & Series Notes for full impact😉FINAL PLOT UPDATE: 23 Mar 2019





	1. Infection Found, Rot Excised

**Author's Note:**

> **FIRST PUBLISHED: 19 Dec 2018**
> 
> If you're following me on Tumblr because you like this story, thanks! Remember to **drop a kudos/comment** here too, _**the world needs more Ukitake-centric fic**_!
> 
> Prefer to stay private? Do what others do, talk to me at [edo.hikaro@gmail.com](mailto:edo.hikaro@gmail.com), I don't bite, promise 😊
> 
> **ABOUT THIS PART 2:**
> 
> Part 2 is the first time this series moves into canon Soul Society. Kubo-sensei modelled Soul Society after the socio-political culture of feudal Japan, which by itself is extremely rich in culture for all kinds of reasonably plausible extrapolations. There's zero need for any out-of-character portrayals in this story. All speech mannerisms have been crafted to resemble the Japanese equivalent.
> 
> Queen's English is used throughout.
> 
> **ABOUT UNOHANA RETSU:**
> 
> As a killer-turned-healer and one of the original Gotei Thirteen, Unohana's perspective is essential to understanding how the Seireitei came to function the way it does. Her thoughts on the upheavals and the key canon characters of Bleach are meant to give an objective take.
> 
> She's a woman who'd spent most of her long life as the most diabolical criminal of Soul Society and only the last few centuries as a healer, so she can never be as one-dimensional as depicted in the anime. The anime was toned down from the manga to suit a gen audience, and the manga toned down from an undoubtedly darker original version of Unohana to suit the Shounen Jump audience.
> 
> Since this series is written for mature audiences, full creative licence is taken to extrapolate on Unohana's nature, her inner world, her mind and her heart. And there's a reason for her abiding love for Ukitake, it's portrayed in here to set the stage for later stories.
> 
> **DEFINITION:**
> 
> _'Hanshi'_ is the title of 'grand master', meaning a teacher of teachers, in Japanese martial arts address. As shinigami and the Gotei are essentially the shogunate (ie. military) of Soul Society, creative licence is used to have Kyouraku address Unohana as 'Hanshi' of healers, with an addition of the '-sama' honorific to express his respect for her, and for the Gotei to have an additional 'Hanshi' level for masters of all disciplines. In this spin-off, Ukitake is portrayed as attaining the level of a Hanshi healer, to be in line with manga canon later where he subsequently takes over healing the wounded after Kyouraku instructs Unohana to train Zaraki.
> 
> **UNOHANA'S USE OF HONORIFICS:**
> 
> According to [bleach.wikia.com, Unohana](https://bleach.fandom.com/wiki/Retsu_Unohana) is very specific in the use of honorifics when addressing others. Hence it is logical to assume that she will also use her personal system of honorifics when she thinks about the same people. Her habit of address in canon is followed with some creative licence in extrapolating how she addresses other characters but is either not covered or fully fleshed out in canon:
> 
> ◼ Canon is followed for when she uses first names without honorifics to address a person close and familiar to her whom she likes and is ranked lower or younger than her (e.g. Isane), and that when she addresses a person in formal settings, she will use their last name with an appropriate honorific or title (e.g. Hitsugaya Taichou, Kuchiki Taichou).
> 
> ◼ Creative licence has been taken to extrapolate her personal honorific system of address to the following levels of relationships:
> 
> ◾ she uses 'first name-san' for a person familiar but not close to her whom she likes and is lower ranked or younger than her (e.g. Nanao-san, Yamada-san);
> 
> ◾ she uses 'first name' only for a person familiar and close to her but whom she does not fully like (e.g. Kyouraku). The only exception is Zaraki, since he has no last name (Kenpachi is a title, not a last name);
> 
> ◾ she uses 'last name - first name' for a person she knows but she either dislikes (e.g. Aizen, Ichimaru, Tousen), is neutral about them (e.g. Kuchiki Rukia), or does not know them (e.g. when first meeting Kurosaki Ichigo, whom she later softens to '-san');
> 
> ◾ she always uses '-sama' only for her seniors at all times, whether with first or last names or titles (e.g. Yamamoto-sama, Soutaichou-sama); and finally;
> 
> ◾ she uses '-kun' only for Ukitake Jyuushirou, whom she loves, in most circumstances. She uses his first name only when overcome with fear for him. One thousand years ago, in their private moments, she addressed him as 'no kimi', the honorific which in feudal Japan was also used to mean a beloved lover, who was often also revered. The closest Western understanding is 'my beloved' but please note this is not a complete equivalent.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In the immediate aftermath of the destruction of the Soukyoku, Unohana races to find evidence to explain the abnormal edicts of the Central 46 surrounding Kuchiki Rukia's death sentence that had driven Jyuushirou to extreme measures - before time runs out and Yamamoto executes her former protégé and his soul brother. While most of her fellow taichou have been blindly compliant, she admits to nursing misgivings since the first announcement of the death sentence. Then her shocking discoveries of Aizen's murder crimes and shadow manipulations wrenches forth her sudden silent rage at his treachery for endangering Jyuushirou's life, and inadvertently unseals the long suppressed violence of her soul as she exposes the traitors to all. 
> 
> (i.e. a missing POV of the canon episode recrafted for this spin-off.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The soap opera begins with Unohana.
> 
> Continuation of 'Unforgivable, Regrettable', Part 1 of the series 'In All, But Blood', after a two thousand year time skip.
> 
> Best read with reference to [MAP OF SEIREITEI](http://bleachsoulevolution.com/forum/index.php?/topic/14944-sereitei-map/) or cut-and-paste the link here: http://bleachsoulevolution.com/forum/index.php?/topic/14944-sereitei-map/

Peace quickly enveloped as Minazuki launched into the air, rapidly leaving behind the crash and thunders of battling reiatsu on Soukyoku Hill. As they soared over the collapsed towers of the Senkaikyuu from where alien reiryoku still emanated, Retsu held onto Isane until they reached an even altitude, then ensured her fukutaichou was resting comfortably before settling into seiza for the smooth flight. Beneath her, the hide of Minazuki was warm and coarse, a reassuring solidity that centred her and focused her thoughts.

She kept her placid composure as she mastered the pounding worries threatening to overwhelm her. The unnamed anxiety plaguing her for days had escalated with the breathtaking destruction of the Soukyoku. Something was seriously, irrevocably wrong. She had known Jyuushirou-kun far too well for far too long. He possessed not a single reishi of impulsiveness or rashness despite his unshakeable and oft passionate sense of justice and honour. Kyouraku was preternaturally gifted at seeing to the heart of the truth, and had an opportunistic streak to lay in wait observing until he could unerringly strike at the best moment, and he used both his talents to extreme proficiency to uphold the truth. Jyuushirou-kun might have been driven by a personal sense of responsibility towards Kuchiki-san, but she would be very surprised indeed if he had also not thoroughly weighed the grave consequences prior to acting. Yet he had followed through with his fatal decision nonetheless, with Kyouraku unflinchingly right beside him. There was a rot in the heart of this chaos, and she could no longer stand by and watch. She would uncover the truth.

Yamamoto-sama would not pardon this treason. This was an act of stark rebellion by the two most respected and revered taichou of the Gotei Thirteen against the very government they had built and upheld through millennia, a clear challenge to the wisdom and authority of the ultimate governing body of Soul Society by two commanders who represented the legend and institution of Yamamoto-sama himself. The actions of the ryoka threatened the very balance and governance of Soul Society. Whether intentionally or not, the crime justified seditious whispers that their leadership had fallen into arrogance and complacency. Of the four of them, it was Jyuushirou-kun whom Yamamoto-sama depended on the most during the era of establishing this very government they all now served under. If Kyouraku was the extension of Soutaichou-sama’s power and will, Jyuushirou-kun was the extension of his mind and his heart. Jyuushirou-kun knew more deeply than Kyouraku and herself how critical it was to uphold the stature and reputation of the joint government of Gotei Thirteen and the Central Forty-Six Chamber. He knew far better than them the severe implications of impugning this standing. Yet, he had proceeded to seal his fate at fatal cost to himself. And Kyouraku, for all his flamboyance, who shared the same code of honour and justice as Yamamoto-sama, had aligned himself with his soul brother.

It would matter none that the Shihouin Clan had sided with their position by lending the use of their greatest artefact. On the contrary, such a stance by one of [Yondai Kizoku](https://bleach.fandom.com/wiki/Noble_Houses) only ensured that Yamamoto-sama would believe Soul Society was in danger of sliding back into the bloody chaotic dark ages they had sacrificed so much to end. She had followed his leadership for five millennia and she knew, with unshakeable and dread certainty in her very reishi, that he would be uncompromising in upholding the edict of the Central Forty-Six. The position of a soutaichou was extremely weighty; in every decision, the stakes were always too high to have any luxury for clemency, compassion or personal considerations. Even if the perpetrator was the one whom all knew was his most favoured, the only soul in his ten thousand years of existence who had penetrated the war and strife hardened shell around his heart, it would hurt him to immeasurable depths but Yamamoto-sama would, in the end, uphold the laws he had created.

Herein lay the cause of her mute horror.

Something had nagged at her from the first announcement of Kuchiki-san’s death sentence. Her doubt heightened into unease during her examination of Aizen’s body even though she had found nothing out of the ordinary. Her unease rose into silent alarm when Hitsugaya Taichou brought a catatonic Hinamori-san to her and explained his suspicions, and how his investigations pointed towards Ichimaru Taichou. Though Hitsugaya Taichou’s unsanctioned investigation had been spurred more by personal reasons, she had lived through too much strife and recovery and understood that every justification, no matter how objective, was invariably personal in one way or another. Her silent alarm climbed into an unnamed anxiety when Zaraki broke out of enforced bedrest with his Third and Fifth Seats, broke into the brigs, freed the friends of the ryoka, and fought Komamura and Tousen Taichou to allow the ryoka’s friends to escape. While it was entirely characteristic of Zaraki to pursue his ceaseless desire to ensure a worthy opponent would live to fight him another day, even he with almost zero reiatsu sensing ability could feel the true intent of a person, much less one as reportedly obvious as the ryoka, and he would not have gone against the edict if he had been dealing with someone truly evil.

Since committing her loyalty to Yamamoto-sama millennia ago, Retsu rarely found the necessity to actively disagree with the soutaichou. Yet these past days she had clearly not been alone in her misgivings. The last time she had seen such dissension within the taichou ranks of the Gotei Thirteen had been two thousand years ago, when Yamamoto-sama rode through the gates of the early shiro of the Gotei Thirteen with a near death thirteen-year-old Jyuushirou-kun in his guardianship.

Abject fear rose as she imagined the severe punishment awaiting the one her commander had taken such great pains to raise and nurture. Viciously she quelled the useless emotion before it rendered her incapable of action or thought, and ruthlessly rejected her mind’s conjuring. She knew Jyuushirou-kun’s abilities, had fought alongside he and Kyouraku and healed the pair enough times over the last two millennia through all manner of injuries and illnesses. They would be able to counter the certain and severe wrath of Yamamoto-sama for a while. She also understood Yamamoto-sama perhaps more deeply than the soutaichou was aware and would gamble on Minazuki that regardless of his resolve, he would find a way to hold back a little and delay their executions.

She would have a fair window of opportunity to act.

Hitsugaya Taichou had shared his suspicions of internal treachery and his frustration at the lack of proof. She would aid his investigations and find that proof.

A soft moan from beside her interrupted her thoughts. Isane was shifting slightly in pain. Retsu instinctively laid a hand on her ribcage and sent a tendril of kaidou to gently ease the discomfort and speed up the healing. The ryoka had been surprisingly gentle with Isane but nevertheless had still broken one rib. For what Retsu needed to do next, she would need Isane to regain full function.

 _So, you wish to learn to heal in order to fight longer, ne?_ the bemused comment of Tenjirou-sensei suddenly echoed in her mind, as if speaking across time and distance.

Retsu silently smiled at the unexpected spectre. _That has not changed, sensei. But now I fight with more than a sword, and for more than myself,_ she wordlessly informed the memory.

# # # # # #

Several heartbeats after her Third Seat Iemura-san led away the last pallets of the injured, Sentaro-kun and Kiyone-kun, Retsu turned to leave but was halted in her steps when a fiery singeing reiatsu burned the edges of her senses. Almost in synchronisation with that inferno reiryoku she knew so well, she felt the electrified pressures of a raging sea storm and the dark pummelling shadowy forces of a quaking earth. The three reiatsu clashed in an explosion that rent the very air over Seireitei with shivers as the ground beneath their feet shook, even though the forces were extremely far away.

“What is that?” Isane breathed, her grey eyes wide with shock.

“It is very distant,” Retsu replied absently, not wishing to divulge the masters of those battling reiatsu.

Unlike the younger generation who tended to be eager for the fight, those three particular shikai had not been unleashed for centuries. Most shinigami today would not know them.

And they were very distant indeed, far beyond the furthest reaches of East Rukongai.

Even more further out than the District Eighty.

_Hold on, Jyuushirou-kun._

“Come with me, Isane. There is place I wish to go.”

“Where, Taichou?” asked Isane.

“To see the Central Forty-Six.” At Isane’s puzzled expression, Retsu added, “Not to make any appeal. I merely wish to observe its current state.”

Isane read her quickly. “Does Taichou suspect something?”

She decided to reveal some of her worries to her trusted adjutant. “Perhaps. But I wish to be proven wrong. We shall have to see what we find.”

The Soukyoku Hill lay between the Fourth Division and the Central Forty-Six Compound, and in order to avoid the massive battles still raging on the plateau, she took the longer way around, passing over the rooftops of the Ninth Division and then over the treetops of the bramble forest at the eastern base of the rocky hill. Upon emerging from shunpo before the outermost gates of the Central Forty-Six Compound, Retsu saw its gates standing ajar with no sign of guards. Alarm growing, she quickly strode through and entered the inner courtyard. It too was also unusually deserted, but what stood at the opposite end of the courtyard sent sharp apprehension spiking through her veins.

There was a jagged hole right in the middle of the large vermillion entrance doors to the Underground Assembly Hall. The force which created that hole had smashed through the security bars as well.

Hesitating no longer, Retsu flash stepped across the courtyard, trusting Isane to keep up, and passed through the tall vermillion panels. It opened onto the bridge over the security moat surrounding the circular hall building, and while the bridge was undamaged, again no guards could be seen. Retsu paused to allow her reiryoku to sense for lingering reiatsu signatures.

There were a few. _Hitsugaya Taichou. Matsumoto-san. Kira Fukutaichou. Hinamori Fukutaichou. And,_ her eyes narrowed, _Ichimaru Gin._ She stilled in shock when she also detected the reiatsu signature of Kaname Tousen Taichou. And…

She gasped involuntarily. _Aizen Sousuke._

In that instant, everything became clear.

The unnecessary harshness of Kuchiki Rukia’s death sentence, the irregular truncation of the mandatory penance period, the unexplained repeated bringing forward of the execution date, leading to Jyuushirou-kun’s decision to destroy the Soukyoku. His intuition was sharper than most, if not the sharpest among the Gotei. She realized instantly that he must have been unconsciously acting upon his instincts in addition to all else that were driving him.

“Hurry!” she urged Isane, breaking into shunpo to cross the bridge.

At the entrance of the hall, she stopped. The stench permeating the hall was nauseating. Swathes of dried blood and corpses fallen in their seats painted the insides of the entire chamber. Its very air screamed murder, its very staleness told her that the heinous crime had been committed weeks ago, at least three weeks, perhaps even a month. The scene told her everything she needed to know.

Beside her, Isane gasped and paled in horror.

“To the Seijoutoukyorin! _Now!_ ” Retsu commanded.

Isane followed at her heels without question. Pushing shunpo, Retsu flew towards the highly fortified residential towers where the members of the Central Forty-Six resided.

Waves of killing intent washed over her before she had even reached the main tower. Leaping onto the ground from shunpo, she sped through the entrance of the main lobby as freezing winds shook the air. Slippery ice covered the floors beneath her and instinctively she exerted reiatsu to keep her footing, abruptly coming to a stop at the scene before her.

The vaulted ceilings of the lobby were lost to shadows. A raised platform led to the antechambers. Cold smoking ice covered everything in jagged glistening blue sheets. Hitsugaya Taichou, in full bankai, stood on the left front end of the platform, poised to attack, the ice wings on his back glinting in battle readiness. He faced the far right of the platform where his opponent placidly stood.

Aizen Sousuke. 

Perfectly alive and looking as scholarly neat as he always did, with not a single scratch on him. His expression was as warm and friendly as if he had not masterminded the entire chain of devastating events.

And Ichimaru Gin, who stood silently on the lobby floor observing the standoff.

Retsu decided on the spot that her authority with Isane’s witness would suffice as proof.

“Aizen. I’m going to kill you.” There was cold fury in Hitsugaya Taichou.

Aizen smiled indulgently. “Don’t use such strong words. It’ll make you look weak.”

Freezing smoke exploded as Hitsugaya Taichou released his reiatsu in rage. From the swirling icy clouds he burst, flying at Aizen with the deadly point of Hyourinmaru aiming straight at Aizen’s heart. With a resounding crack jagged ice covered the zanpakutou as it plunged directly into Aizen’s torso, the ice springing up around Aizen’s form and encasing him in a glacier block.

Suddenly Aizen’s form within the ice block wavered and vanished.

Retsu gasped at the same time as Hitsugaya Taichou looked up in shock.

Before anyone could react, Aizen reappeared behind Hitsugaya Taichou, completely unharmed, his zanpakutou drawn and blood flowing down its blade onto the floor. A breath later, a thick red fountain sprayed from Hitsugaya Taichou, his ice wings disintegrating as he began to fall. As his body thudded to the floor, his blood freezing in his own reiatsu ice, Aizen looked up into the shadows of the ceilings with a contemplative smile.

“What a beautiful sight,” he remarked to himself, as though commenting on a particularly masterful piece of calligraphy and not having just brutally murdered a colleague. He turned and smoothly crossed the dais. “Ice is not in season,” he mused to Ichimaru Gin as he reached the top of the platform steps. “But it is not so bad to see it at this time of the year.” He began to descend the steps, then halted when he caught sight of Retsu.

“ _Aizen Taichou_ ,” she greeted coldly.

Ichimaru Gin turned slightly at her voice, his slit, almost closed eyes seeming to see her without opening.

She amended her words. “No, we probably should not call you taichou any longer.”

An old, old, _old_ fury she had not felt in a very long time stirred and began to rise, her mind flashing to the memory of fatal wrath rolling from ancient wizened eyes beneath heavy white brows. If she lost Jyuushirou-kun due to this man, if Jyuushirou-kun was damaged in any way due to this man… memories assailed her. _Blood over alabaster skin… blood drenching long white silk tangled in her hand… enraged flames incinerating everything in vengeance… laboured breaths against her neck… slender chest shuddering in pain against her side… blade of blood in her hand bathing all who encroached, slicing all who would dare…_ Ruthlessly she banished the millennia old images, mercilessly smothering the violence until her fury banked into a simmering anger coiled beneath the iron mantle of peace she had unassailably worn over eight centuries.

Duty resettled in her, reaffirming her, strengthening her. Reminding her, once again, that she had not been alone in her misgivings.

There would be reckoning. Later.

Now, she was needed.

Retsu called out the true name of the evil before her.

“You are just Aizen Sousuke, the _traitor_.”


	2. Dissection And Sutures

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Aizen has escaped, leaving behind fractures in close relationships, and a shaken belief in their government. Unohana moves to help mend the emotional afflictions within the Gotei so that they can become stronger. Kuchiki Byakuya will need to understand the true meaning of pride and leadership. The entire Gotei will need to learn to cease its blind obedience and think, and be courageous to question when things appear wrong. Yamamoto will need to heal his recent breach with his two most cherished disciples, who were as the two youngest Pillars of the Gotei, bore the most severe brunt of trying to right a terrible miscarriage of justice. They will need to heal themselves before they can continue to lead. She gets so busy healing others that unknown to herself, the embers of her millennia old love for Jyuushirou begins to rekindle.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> UNOHANA'S POV: Essential to set perspectives right on the various Bleach canon, from background to key characters.

So Aizen aimed to be a kami.

Retsu concealed her silent disdain for the vulgar shallowness of that puerile ambition as she ruminated over the pained, gasping report of the grievously injured Abarai Fukutaichou before he was borne away to her wards at the Sougo Kyuugo Tsumesho. Shinigami were already accorded the status of kami by Humans in the Gense. However that was clearly still inadequate to satiate the traitor’s hunger for power and his arrogance.

Arrogance. A quality that seemed to afflict a few members of the High Command of the younger generation of the Gotei Thirteen.

Particularly this one before her.

She contemplated the prone Kuchiki Taichou as she rose from seiza and stood back to allow Iemura-san to work. Field kaidou had already been administered, and all that remained was for Iemura-san and his pallet transport team to transfer to the young taichou to that secluded section of her hospital she reserved for taichou patients.

Rukia-san remained at his side, clasping his hand in both of her small ones, her face damp with silent tears as she finally understood the man who had adopted her. The young taichou’s pained, halting explanation to his sister-in-law painted the picture of a young man hopelessly caught between a rock and a hard place.

_Keep his vow to his clan to always set an example and uphold the law, or break that vow to keep his vow to the only love of his life to always protect her sister?_

Yet, wisdom did not always accompany strength, nor did it always accompany age. Retsu had known old hearts which were fools, and young hearts which were wise. The differentiator was humility and arrogance. Young Kuchiki Byakuya had never healed his fractured heart, and against all wiser counsel, in his arrogance, he had foolishly buried his wound beneath cold clan pride and martial prowess.

Such an avoidance could never last, it was only a matter of time before his veneer cracked.

And now it had.

Throughout this entire traumatic episode that upended the Seireitei, he had been emotionally crippled to the point where he had nearly wrecked his honour to his late wife.

If he had humbled himself enough to ask, he would have been counselled with generous kindness and understanding that a clan head who broke such a personal vow to himself would eventually impair his ability to keep his vows to his clan.

A gentle deep tenor echoed with sadness in her mind as her memory rose unbidden of that counsel several decades ago. _One is not separate from the other,_ spoke the sculpted lips, brushed by glowing tips of white strands, the light of the moon limning a pale noble profile. _Both sides are part of same whole. No leader can truly function with one side of the soul so injured._

That wisdom had fallen on deaf pride.

Retsu turned away, her eyes wandering to the far edge of the plateau, searching and resting upon the one who had spoken those words. Jyuushirou-kun’s tall slender white figure stood with his profile towards her, his long white mane lifting in tousled streams in the winds. Beside him, towering like his personal sentinel, stood Kyouraku, his broad-shouldered brightly-coloured form still and watchful. They were both looking towards the base of the remains of the Soukyoku execution stand, at the hunched, bald, silhouette of Yamamoto-sama.

The soutaichou stood with his back to them and the plateau, unmoving, and appearing as immovable as the mountains for which he was named.

Even from her distance, the breach between sensei and disciples was palpable.

“Unohana-sama…”

The pained address drew her attention back.

Looking down, she gazed at Kuchiki Taichou expectantly, meeting shadows of contrition and guilt in his slate-grey eyes.

“Where is… Is Senpai… is he well?”

She hid her surprise.

The young taichou had never shown anything beyond cool etiquette or emotionless indifference towards the only soul outside of his clan who had ever understood him. His late grandfather Kuchiki Ginrei-sama, who hoped to temper his grandson’s hard head and brash temper with the virtues of true leadership, persuaded Yamamoto-sama to have his grandson placed under the coveted mentorship of one who was revered by all for his honour and courage, and well-loved throughout for his gentleness and open mind, but whose health condition and duty commitments at that time scarcely allowed him enough rest for himself, much less mentor a young, brash and obstinately prideful soul.

Retsu never thought that the stubborn young lord who wielded powers greater than his humility truly appreciated how rare a privilege he was given.

“I do not yet know,” she told him honestly, silencing her internal criticism.

It was not her place to reprove the young taichou, as much sympathy as she felt for him.

Kuchiki Byakuya would either humble himself to learn and grow to become more than he was, or he would continue clinging to his pride like a tattered armour and stagnate at his current level. He had admitted to his adopted sister that he owed it to the ryoka leader called Kurosaki Ichigo for opening his eyes. Retsu hoped that was the beginning of a necessary change.

When worry filled his gaze, she assured him, “I will certainly send you a message when I have news.” 

Remorse and uncertainty passed over his expression. He looked like he wanted to press, then fell silent as more self-reproach shadowed his features. “Thank you, Unohana-sama,” he rasped, averting his eyes.

Gazing at him, it dawned on her that hurtful words must have recently been exchanged between the young taichou and his former senpai.

For such a thing, she was in the position to extend an indirect helping hand.

“Perhaps, when you are able, you may wish to personally convey your concern,” ” she suggested kindly.

When Kuchiki Taichou looked at her thoughtfully, she knew her guess was correct.

Perhaps it would also be timely to add an oblique admonishment.

“Our tenets are purity, justice and honour, our mission is to destroy evil at all costs,” she recited the Shinigami code. “But nothing is truly black or right, or clear. We need great strength to carry out our mission, but even greater strength to uphold our tenets, because many of our actions require our individual value judgements. As taichou, we have the power to either save or sever at our every whim. Peace and balance prevail when we use our powers wisely, but chaos and bloodshed if we do not. Or if we make a mistake.” She paused, her mood darkening. “It is now very clear that Aizen Sousuke never understood what power and strength truly mean.”

“What… what do they truly mean?”

 _Perhaps the ryoka invasion is starting a change,_ she observed quietly. _If the Sixth Division Taichou and Head of the Kuchiki-ke is actually listening to others for once._

“The higher we climb, the stronger we become, the greater the strength we must have in our souls to wield our powers with more than our skills and our authorities.” The explanation still came to her as easily as if she had heard it yesterday. “Simple intangible powers, such as friendship, humility, have much greater effect than a bankai technique, but are much more difficult to master. It takes the greatest strength to be gentle and kind, Kuchiki Taichou. Fortunately for us, practice always makes perfect, as in all things. We usually start with knowing when to ask for and accept the assistance of another, or find it in ourselves to give our understanding to another.”

Slate-grey eyes gazed at her in deep contemplation at her words.

She bowed. “You have been through much, Kuchiki Taichou. Now please, rest and concentrate on recovery.”

“I shall… remember your words, Unohana-sama.”

“I merely quote another, Kuchiki Taichou,” she smiled at him faintly. “I believe you will not need me to tell you who among us is mostly qualified to impart this truth.”

She finally stood back and gestured for Iemura-san to proceed with the pallet transport.

As she watched, her relief team quickly took their positions for team shunpo, and a proud sense of satisfaction filled her when she saw them flawlessly execute the manoeuvre, their forms flickering and vanishing in unison.

Alone now, she looked around.

The plateau was now almost deserted, and the day was drawing into late afternoon. The Shihouin Shield was nowhere to be seen, as was Soi Fon Taichou and… Shihouin Yoruichi.

Her sudden re-appearance astonished Retsu as much as it rekindled a gush of old mixed feelings. The Gotei Thirteen was now clearly in the debt of her long-lost colleague. But how they would now respond to her sudden return was more ambiguous.

It had been a hundred years since the infamous noblewoman abandoned her position and titles and vanished along with her childhood friend and colleague, Urahara Kisuke. In that time, the Gotei had become populated with a younger generation who mostly lacked knowledge of their history. As for the High Command of the Gotei, there would be words soon between Yamamoto-sama and the former Head of Shihouin-ke, of that Retsu was certain.

Abandonment of duties, no matter the reason, was not easily forgiven, particularly by one as implacable as Yamamoto-sama.

Farther back on the plateau, near the forest, shone the golden yellow light of the healing dome cast by the Human girl over the prone figure of the ryoka leader. Even from this distance and through the golden light barrier, the hair of the youth leader was a shocking shade of carrot orange. His friends were standing about the dome in conversation, and his hands were gesturing from where he lay, clearly recovered enough to converse with them. The Human girl clearly used her powers for benign purposes, but there was something about it that was vaguely uncomfortable, and and somehow seemed familiar. If there was an opportunity later, Retsu would welcome it to learn more of the girl.

Finally she turned to the three men in the distance who meant more to her than any soul. They were the only ones of the Gotei Thirteen still remaining on Soukyoku Hill. Beyond Yamamoto-sama’s hunched, unmoving silhouette, spread the panoramic vista of the Seireitei, its skyline now drastically changed. Half of the soaring gleaming white towers of the Senkaikyuu was now a pile of still smoking rubble. The remains of the colossal execution stand stood burnt and bleak, cleaved cleanly in two. Scattered all over the plateau lay the fallen, charred cinders of what had once been the titanic halberd of the Soukyoku.

The scent of burning still permeated the air. It was all that remained of the Kikou’ou.

Only the gentle stirring of the white haori of the three men offered any movement in the deathly still scene.

Training her eyes on the one who still remained as precious to her as the first time she understood, a thousand years ago, that he was no longer a child, Retsu made her way forwards.

# # # # # #

Jyuushirou-kun appeared uninjured, but that was hardly an adequate assessment, for Retsu knew he was as adept as her in concealing his true physical condition. He stood still and resolute as he watched the soutaichou, his long white mane tousled by the breeze, his white haori singed in places. His height blocked most of the taller form of Kyouraku, and she could only see the pointed red tip of Kyouraku’s familiar sugegasa straw hat over the smooth white crown of Jyuushirou-kun’s head.

Both turned as they sensed her approach.

The wind momentarily lifted a long white bang off Jyuushirou-kun’s face, revealing a track of dried blood running down his right cheekbone from a cut on his right temple. His pale angular features were wan, and there were visible dark smudges under his deep-set dark eyes.

Kyouraku had drawn his hat brim down low over his lean aristocratic face, the silk of his flowered pink kimono revealing singed marks as they swung in the winds and momentarily wrapped a fold around Jyuushirou-kun’s slighter form.

As she drew closer, the uncertainty and resolution in Jyuushirou-kun’s dark eyes gave way to worry upon seeing her.

“Kiyone, Sentarou…?” His gentle deep tenor held a slight rasp in its usual lyrical timbre. She immediately identified them as effects of mild smoke inhalation.

“They are well,” she assured him as she drew abreast. “They were healed in the belly of Minazuki and are now recovering in the Sixteenth First Aid Office.”

Relief flowed visibly across the angular lines of his tensed pale features. “Thank you, Senpai.”

She inclined her head once in acknowledgement, then turned to gaze upon the ruins of the execution stand.

Seeing it at a closer distance now, Retsu saw that it could never be repaired. The ryoka boy had cleaved it right down its middle and its shattered half lay all over the plateau in pieces of jagged timber. If the Central Forty-Six wished for it to be rebuilt, the remaining standing half would have to be torn down completely and a new construct be erected.

That was assuming the halberd’s power could ever be restored.

Once the burning odour dissipated, the Kikou’ou would truly be gone. Completely vaporised with nothing left of it except the memories of those who had witnessed its unleashing and destruction today. Kurotsuchi Mayuri might be able to restore the physical form of the halberd, but there was simply an inadequate number of zanpakutou to restore its power. All zanpakutou in existence today numbered less than three thousand, while the million that once comprised the combined force of the Kikou’ou was accumulated over several millennia since Medieval Soul Society, when Shinigami were called Baransaa.

A mere touch of the Kikou’ou to a living reishi body, and the soul within would vaporise completely, leaving nothing behind to return to the Balance. It would be as if the soul never existed, and all its prior lifetimes erased as if they had never been.

It would take another eon for the Soukyoku to regain such a terrifying might.

She spoke quietly. “When I found the murdered members of the Central Forty-Six, I understood immediately why you acted as you did. Your misgivings were accurate, your motivations are now clear.” Turning her gaze, she firmly held Jyuushirou-kun’s dark eyes. “But you should have shared your suspicions with me prior to acting on your intent, Jyuushirou-kun. I would have interceded on your behalf with Yamamoto-sama. And he would not have to break his own heart to inflict such punishment on you.”

“Nay, Hanshi-sama, Ukitake would never involve you in something like this,” put in Kyouraku at once, stepping forwards a step. His customary low mellow drawl was now devoid of its usual languor. “Neither would I.”

She had not considered that the pair wanted to protect her from the wrath of the soutaichou.

Kyouraku sighed. “Besides, we had less than a day left when the execution date was brought forward the second time.” Now that she was closer, she saw that he, too, had a cut on his cheek which had dried unattended. It came as no surprise to her when she observed that his pewter eyes, usually lazy, were glinting with atypical hardness. “If there was one thing we should have shared with you, it’s that Central Forty-Six ignored Ukitake’s request for emergency audience.”

The news stunned her.

“Ignored?”

It was a well-known law throughout the Gotei that a taichou’s request for emergency audience with the Central Forty-Six Chamber must be immediately granted and heard, regardless of the subject. Such requests were rarely invoked, but when it was, the circumstances were usually dire.

“Yes,” Kyouraku bit out with a flash of uncharacteristic anger. “Two appeals, and one request for emergency hearing, over a mere four days. Rukia-chan came back four days ago. We immediately interviewed her in full presence of Soi Fon and the Onmitsukidou as neutral observers. She acted purely in self-defence, Hanshi-sama, and she saved the life of a living Human in the process. She was badly wounded by a Hollow, and that Human boy, the one they’re calling Kurosaki Ichigo, was the nearest living being available who had a hope of saving them both. But only if he had the power to wield a zanpakutou. So she transferred her reiryoku to him. That’s entirely justifiable, isn’t it? Ukitake sent in his interview notes immediately with Soi Fon’s endorsement. He took responsibility for her conduct and recommended her demotion for a year. All self-defence cases we ever had were let off lightly, sometimes completely. So why was she sentenced to death? By the Soukyoku of all means! That’s reserved only for the most heinous and powerful criminals who can’t be killed in any other way. Not an unseated officer like her who’s already weak from losing half her reiryoku. Why did no one question the sentence?”

She had no answer to that.

Why, indeed, did she herself not act immediately to question?

Had she also become as apathetic as the rest?

“Rukia-chan had no due process either,” Kyouraku further pointed out. “No official independent investigation, no hearing, no trial. I’m no master jurist or legalist, but even I know these processes are compulsory for all criminals by our laws. She was denied all of them.”

This was changing everything.

“When the sentence came down, I had to hold Ukitake up in these arms,” he stretched out both his long arms, “while he composed the appeal. He couldn’t sit upright for long, that was how sick he was. Not even Yama-jii has the power to overturn a Chamber edict, but that’s only if the Chamber follows all laws. It didn’t in this case. And a request for review from Ukitake is not to be ignored, everyone knows who he is. Instead, the next day Rukia-chan’s one-month penitence period was halved to two weeks. We immediately sent in another appeal, and I dropped it off myself at the front gates of the Administrative Compound two days ago.”

She mentally placed the timeline.

Two days ago was when the ryoka invaded the Seireitei.

“Yesterday, we were told of Aizen’s fake murder, and right after that, Rukia-chan’s penitence period was further shortened so that her execution would fall on today. But by then, everyone was too shocked and angry at the ryoka to bother with Rukia-chan, ne?” Kyouraku finished with sarcasm.

“So that’s when you invoked taichou rights for emergency audience,” Retsu surmised, looking at Jyuushirou-kun.

He nodded, still staying silent.

The emotions in his dark eyes, however, were stormy, filled with resolution but also a deep-seated fear.

She had to catch herself.

It had been a near thousand years since she last saw such fear in his eyes.

“We waited for hours, Hanshi-sama. _Hours_ ,” Kyouraku stressed, his expression uncharacteristically hard. “I thought such a request should have been granted immediately no matter the case or circumstance. That’s our law, isn’t it?” His silver eyes, usually placid, were like chipped blades. “So when the Shihouin Shield appeared in Ukitake’s meditation room yesterday, we took the chance. There was no more time.”

“Yoruichi-san sent it?”

Kyouraku looked uncertain. “It must be. The messenger was fully masked and clad in black, but a Shihouin. You can’t hide that distinctive reiatsu signature. And only she would know that breaking the seals on that artefact is beyond everyone in the Gotei except Yama-jii and Ukitake. Yama-jii would certainly never do such a thing for a lowly officer. It had to be Ukitake.” His hard pewter eyes stole towards where Yamamoto-sama stood in stony stillness with his back still towards them. Sadness perceptibly overcame him. “We tried to explain to Yama-jii, but he was beyond listening. He didn’t even want to understand. Just forced us to release shikai.”

“I betrayed him,” Jyuushirou-kun spoke finally, his fine features wan and becoming increasingly ashen as the moments drew on. “My cause is just and I do not regret it. But my actions…” Grief creased his expression. “Whatever my reasons, Sensei has the right to be angry.”

Retsu begged to differ.

Even as her mind sped with her healer’s ability to analyse in a flash, her heart ached for the gentle soul before her.

There were three fundamental laws of their realm built into the very constitution of their government, which gave rise to all other laws of their land. The first law was that all Chamber decisions were absolute and no appeal could be granted. The second mandated that before the Chamber was allowed to make its final decision on any case, the case must be thoroughly and independently investigated, and all information, evidence and data relating to it immediately and thoroughly reviewed upon discovery. The third rule required that equal opportunities must be given for both prosecution and defence to present their respective versions of the case, followed by a compulsory three-phase deliberation process before the Chamber was allowed to make its final decision. This three-law code was watertight and immutable to protect justice and allow no room for hypocrisy and corruption. Supporting it were an array of other rules, chief among which was the inviolable right of a Gotei Taichou to summon the Chamber for an emergency audience in times of emergencies, regardless of the situation or the case.

A Chamber member who breached any part of the laws of their realm, in particular the triumvirate code, would face heavy punishment regardless of background, rank and title.

Ignoring a taichou-level request for emergency audience was in itself a crime committed by the Chamber. This would have been sufficient to render Kuchiki Rukia’s execution sentence invalid, or at the very least, suspended the sentence and stayed the execution until proper investigations could be conducted and concluded.

But to ignore such a request from Jyuushirou-kun, was nothing short of an outright coup.

Everyone in the Seireitei, from the newest undergraduate of the Shinoureijutsuin to the lowliest of city gardeners, knew that when Yamamoto Soutaichou founded the Seireitei and their present government fifteen centuries ago, he did not do it alone. Always standing behind his right shoulder was his legendary eldest ward and personal disciple, who lent his profound and incredible mastery of law, politics and administration to Yamamoto-sama’s crafting of the very spirit, constitutions and covenants of their government. And throughout the history of their present government, it had always been Jyuushirou-kun alone whom Yamamoto-sama called upon for the higher tasks of government, law and administration, many of which were kept in strictest secrecy and were carried out by sensei and disciple in the soutaichou’s private inner sanctum.

Such as that mission that lasted the last three hundred years.

Everyone knew Jyuushirou’s frequent absences and retreat from public eye were due to that operation. None knew what it was. Not even her. Yamamoto-sama kept knowledge of it even from her, hence she never pressed. She could only stand by and watch helplessly as that mission took its toll on Jyuushirou-kun’s already frail health without respite. But if Yamamoto-sama entrusted it only to Jyuushirou-kun, it meant that there was no one else who could do the job. And she would trust her soutaichou on that.

Even Aizen knew.

The traitor was part of the Gotei High Command.

Did Aizen believe Jyuushirou-kun’s preoccupation give him the opportunity to infiltrate and manipulate the Central Forty-Six?

Either he lacked adequate understanding of their laws, or he was too arrogant, or he was in a hurry, or all of the above, to have dared ignored a request for emergency audience from the taichou of the Thirteenth Division.

Retsu stopped herself. No, that was not quite right. Aizen might be treacherous but he was extremely intelligent.

The more probable explanation was that he had known the implications of ignoring Jyuushirou-kun’s request, and had thus used the distraction of the ryoka’s invasion to drastically hasten Kuchiki Rukia’s penitence period to bring forward his goal. Even if Hitsugaya Taichou had known earlier that the Central Forty-Six had broken its own laws, it would not have changed the outcome. Between the invasion, the truncating of the penitence period, how blindly obedient they had been, how mired in their own personal demons a few of them had been, and how independent of one another each division had been, Aizen had won simply by giving them no time to form a coordinated counter response.

If they had any time at all to think, collaborate and respond, it was when the sentence was first announced.

When Yamamoto-sama himself should have questioned the unusual harshness of Rukia-san’s sentence, and led a concerted effort to fight the sentence.

When Retsu herself should have actively questioned, and convinced her commander to look deeper.

With Kyouraku’s explanations now, it was clear as daylight to Retsu that the young lady’s crime did not warrant an execution.

But only Hitsugaya Taichou and, in his unruly ways, Zaraki, had heeded their instincts and taken actions. And they had all been uncoordinated. If both of them had contacted Jyuushirou-kun or Kyouraku, between four taichou such as them, the Gotei might have responded much better.

And Aizen might not have gotten his way.

Hindsight was always twenty-twenty and hence, worthless.

Retsu glanced at the hunched silhouette in the distance.

Yamamoto-sama’s form had not moved an inch during their exchange.

Turning back to her former protégé, she studied his visage, noting the crease between his otherwise smooth brows, and the increasing bloodlessness of his pallor. Worry rising, she surreptitiously sent her reiatsu towards him in a gentle scanning field, and frowned inwardly when she sensed his reiryoku ebbing at a lower register than was normal for him, flowing like a sluggish river instead of the usual vigour of his vast currents. Running her gaze over him, she once again tried to determine if he was hiding any injury beneath the voluminous folds of his robes. Now that she was standing beside him, she noticed he was imperceptibly favouring his right side.

Her heart dropping, she decided she would have to take charge, and quickly, before that hidden injury became worse. None of the three males in her life seemed capable of taking the first step to close the breach in their relationships, even if the breach was new and thus could be easily mended.

Retsu turned towards her long-time commander, then prepared herself. Long experience had taught her that the best way to manage the soutaichou in a situation like this was to avoid pointing out the obvious. She walked over to him, chancing a glance at his wizened, hook-nosed profile as she came to a halt at his side.

Nothing had changed in his demeanour. His eyes, as usual, were hidden under heavy white brows, their long trails blowing gently in the wind, as did the long tails of his moustache under his hooked nose. His aged, wrinkled hands rested on top of his gnarled walking stick. His entire mien was unperturbed, ancient and inscrutable. He looked nothing like a man who had, mere hours before, almost executed his own sons.

However, she knew him better.

Adhering to her usual formality, she gave him her report.

“Soutaichou, all injured have received treatment and are evacuated from here,” she began. “Hitsugaya Taichou and Hinamori Fukutaichou were severely wounded by Aizen in the main lobby of the Seijoutoukyorin. I have given them emergency surgery and transported them to intensive care in Sougo Kyuugo Tsumesho. Kuchiki Taichou will also be there shortly, as will Abarai Fukutaichou.” She looked up at the broken stand. “Before Abarai Fukutaichou passed out, he reported that Aizen had removed a power orb called Hougyoku from the soul of Rukia-san. He used a device created by Urahara Kisuke to perform the extraction and the procedure appeared to be clean and painless. My examination of Rukia-san confirms the perfect efficacy of the procedure. Aizen revealed that he could have used this device all along, but he had withheld it in favour of orchestrating the events we experienced as his first plan of attack.”

When there was no response to her report, Retsu decided to reveal the most pertinent pieces of information she had learnt. “It seems this Hougyoku has the power to dissolve the boundaries between Shinigami and Hollows powers and therefore allow the powers of both races to merge. In my brief confrontation with Aizen in the Seijoutoukyorin, he revealed that his true shikai is complete hypnosis. Even if we looked upon his shikai only once, its effect remains permanent.” She paused, then softly added, “We have been completely misled for centuries.”

At her last sentence, Yamamoto-sama turned to look at her. His red eyes were near hidden as always, but she detected a hard glint as the late afternoon sunlight began to slant.

“Then I do believe his treachery has been a long time in planning and execution,” he concluded in his gravelly voice.

She nodded. “I agree.” She gazed at the ruined execution stand. “Perhaps it is for the best that the Soukyoku is no more. We now have one less power to tempt Aizen to return.”

“He is not yet finished,” scoffed Yamamoto-sama. “Or did you not hear the whelp? He wants to be a kami.” Then belatedly realizing that she had been busy saving lives during Aizen’s escape, he softened. “Will you inform Abarai to file a full and detailed report directly to me as soon as he is able? Kuchiki Rukia as well. They were the only two witnesses present when Aizen revealed his treachery. I want no detail left out.”

“Hai, Soutaichou-sama.” Lowering her eyes, she bowed slightly. “I shall return to my duties. But before I do, there is someone anxiously awaiting for an audience with you.” With that, she straightened and began to leave.

“Retsu.”

She paused.

The old wizened face remained looking at her, but there was a gravity in its usually inscrutable expression. “Have I done wrong?”

A question to which an honest answer was expected. She had known him too long to conclude otherwise.

“Yamamoto-sama, we all make mistakes,” she replied kindly. “Even us. Once in a while, we let our tempers get the better of our senses.” She smiled gently. “But as you once told me, until a reiatsu ends, nothing in Soul Society is truly permanent. That includes mistakes.”

The red gaze of the soutaichou almost physically burned into her back as she walked away, but she continued placidly. She had never found it necessary to chide her superior, and never wished to do so even when the occasion called for it.

“Stay awhile, Retsu,” he suddenly called. “I wish for the four of us to gather a moment.”

She stopped and turned, feeling a weight lift from her heart at his phrase of ‘ _the four of us’_.

For it always boiled down to the four of them, did it not?

“Jyuushirou,” called Yamamoto-sama. “Shunsui.”

The order in which he called his two disciples was deliberate. Clearly, he had known which of them had initiated the destruction of the Soukyoku.

Her two younger colleagues approached, their tension perceptible only to those who knew them very well. Kyouraku’s eyes were deliberately shaded by the brim of his hat, and Jyuushirou-kun’s dark gaze was determined, yet barely concealing a boil of emotions, the most prominent of which was fear.

Retsu’s heart ached for him.

Yamamoto-sama stared expressionlessly as his two sons and personal disciples for a heartbeat and then, his usual gravelly voice somehow managing to convey an unspoken apology, said to them, “Perhaps now is the time for discussion.”

# # # # # #

Jyuushirou-kun stepped forward at once. The smudges under his dark eyes were deepening with worrying speed, darkening even more as he lowered his gaze and his black lashes feathered on the pallor of his cheeks. He began to speak, his deep tenor calm, his words firm, his analyses and reports clear and succinct as he laid out his actions in a chronological flow. He spoke like how he had always presented a treatise, his turn of phrase elegantly concise and to the point, but beneath his tone brimmed an emotion that Retsu now clearly identified with.

As she listened, it became clear that in the final analysis, Aizen exposed himself either by his own arrogance, or his haste. If it was arrogance, then the traitor overreached himself in his manipulation of their laws in blatant view of the very one who seeded those laws. Violating the sanctity of the triumvirate code was his first mistake. While he might have anticipated that his charade would not last, he had clearly underestimated Jyuushirou-kun’s determination, abilities and courage to rise from his sickbed to challenge the Chamber.

“I did not know about Aizen’s manipulation when I pursued my actions,” Jyuushirou-kun said in conclusion, his gaze still lowered. “At that time my only proof was that the Chamber had broken its own laws, and I had believed that such a proof was enough. The triumvirate code is inviolate and immutable, Rukia’s case had not been investigated yet wartime exemption for zanpakutou release was declared in all of Seireitei to prevent her rescue. I saw it as a clear miscarriage of justice and I believed that the root of it lay in the Chamber. I was determined to stop it with everything I had.” He finally raised his eyes, his dark gaze burning. “I regret nothing of my desire for justice and my efforts to right a terrible wrong. I do regret, however, that my actions were extreme. I know that of all your officers, it is I who should know better than any other that my action would bring terrible implications. I have no excuse for that. I involved Shunsui when the burden is not his to bear. For these wrongs, I will comply with any punishment you deem fit to mete.” Pausing, his expression cracking with grief, he rasped, his gentle deep tenor suddenly rough, “Sensei, I… I can never repay you enough for everything you have done for me. I have hurt you deeply. If you no longer trust me because of this, then I fully deserve it. I will not resist any punishment. But please, I beg you, Sensei, Shunsui is not to blame. Please do not punish him-”

“Oi, Ukitake, don’t take all the glory, ne?” Kyouraku’s drawling baritone was audibly roughened. Stepping forward, pewter eyes glinting beneath their characteristic heavy-lidded gaze, he spoke with a hardened tone. “Yama-jii, I was the first one to seek out Ukitake to speak my misgivings when Rukia-chan’s death sentence was first announced. A punishment was necessary, but isn’t execution by the Soukyoku reserved only for the most heinous of crimes by the highest level officers? Certainly not for her. We were not pursuing our own justice, Yama-jii. At that time we didn’t know Aizen was the mastermind, but did we really need to know that? Shouldn’t the unusual absurdity of the sentence be enough to begin an inquiry? When we subsequently knew that the Chamber had broken its own rules, surely, we should act? Since nobody was doing it, so why not us.” He paused, then added without mirth, “It cost me three nights of no sake to help Ukitake finish his submissions.”

Retsu speared him a stern look, then stepped forth to add her own perspective. “I dare say that when Aizen read Jyuushirou-kun’s submission to demand proper due process, that was the first time he was alerted that his complete hypnosis could not fool someone who had deep knowledge of our laws. He must have felt he was at risk of being exposed, it would explain why he rushed the execution date forward. He staged his own assassination to distract us all from his true objective.” She collected her thoughts for a moment, then continued, “Yamamoto-sama, I too harboured doubts when I heard the first announcement that Rukia-san was to be executed. I regret not sharing my concerns earlier. If I had, the three of us would have been able to present you with a strong alternative ground to act upon.” She bowed in apology.

“Yama-jii, you know me. I obey and follow rules but not when those rules become this estranged from logic,” Kyouraku persisted, his demeanour bearing a gravity that Retsu had only seen a few times in all the two thousand years she had known him.

She caught his pewter eyes and shared her agreement. “Yes,” she admitted with a sigh. “I, too, was afraid to question like most of us. Aizen’s manipulation might have made us fail Rukia-san and those who care about her, but that is a completely separate issue from how we had blindly followed the edict like unthinking automatons. He knows our weaknesses well. And made complete fools of us.”

Kyouraku and her had unconsciously placed themselves on either side of Jyuushirou-kun. They had each arrived at their conclusions from separate, unpremeditated paths, yet the fact that they arrived at the same conclusion clearly signalled the position the four of them must take on the issue.

Yamamoto-sama grunted once and closed his eyes as he digested their words.

They waited silently.

The sun began to set, its rays slanting over the hilltop plateau, dusting Jyuushirou-kun’s long white mane in gleaming golden hues but did little to alleviate his increasing greyness. As he began to slouch over his right side, her worry escalated.

Her anxiety was interrupted by Yamamoto-sama’s sudden pronouncement.

“We will not repair the Soukyoku.”

They looked at him, holding their collective breaths.

“Let the pieces lie where they fell, to always remind us of what transpired and why we must prevent such occurrences in the future.” His wizened eyes flashed at his sons with irritation. “Next time, come to me immediately when something is this wrong. Even if it is to remind me to listen. Do not wait until my temper and patience have worn out. Do not handle matters on your own when the matter concerns us all.”

“Would you have listened if I had told you first instead of Ukitake, Yama-jii?” Kyouraku asked, not quite a retort but nearly one.

Yamamoto-sama thumped his gnarled cane at him. “I am not yet stubborn and senile!” Then he amended himself. “Perhaps stubborn. Well, that is because I am very old. You, Shunsui, will be more stubborn than I when you reach my age. What you forget is your talent for overcoming my obstinacy in the past. Why did you think this time would be any different? But do not make the mistake that I have gone senile. I am not senile. _Yet_.”

Kyouraku subsided at the gravelly emphasis on the last word.

“There are developments which neither of you nor the rest of the Gotei know,” Yamamoto-sama continued severely. “Developments which I could not have shared. There are far graver matters at stake than Human children trying to rescue Kuchiki Rukia. She is a Shinigami of the Gotei. I expect her to make sacrifices according to her duty and the greater good like the rest of us. Yet, I would have put a stop to her execution if I had the right key.” His red gaze shifted to Jyuushirou-kun, and his entire demeanour visibly softened.

“Jyuushirou,” his gravelly voice rumbled. Despite their recent fight, he still spoke the name of his eldest son like he always had, with that uncharacteristic gentleness that he never used on anyone else.

“Jyuushirou,” he repeated again, even more gently this time.

“Sensei…” Jyuushirou-kun closed his eyes and bowed his head.

“You should have told me,” rasped Yamamoto-sama. “As soon as your request for emergency audience was ignored, you should have told me. You are absolutely correct that of all my officers it is you, and you alone, who should have known better. You should have sent for me if you were unable to leave your bed. What drove you?”

“I did not wish to jeopardise your position more than I already have,” replied Jyuushirou-kun in a near whisper, anguished. “Rukia is my subordinate and I let her commit a crime while she is under my charge. If the Chamber saw you helping my case, they would question your objectivity even further.”

Retsu frowned.

Even further? Was Yamamoto-sama facing problems with the Chamber?

Her suspicion began to rise. Were both of them referring to that draining three-hundred-year covert operation?

“Perhaps. But I shall have proof of their own misconduct to counter them,” Yamamoto-sama was saying.

Jyuushirou-kun bit his lower lip and shook his head, his long white bangs swaying. “Nay, Sensei. It would be too dangerous for you. I would not risk it.”

Ancient red eyes gazed sombrely at him. “Any risk is worth it if we could have uncovered earlier that we were dealing with Aizen, not the Chamber.”

Retsu physically felt the tall spare frame beside her shudder. She stole a sideways glance, and saw stricken guilt in the dark, long-lashed eyes.

“This clearly has something to do with whatever mission it was that the two of you were working on the last three hundred years,” Kyouraku spoke up, his low drawl soft and bleak. However there was a hard glint in his pewter eyes that caught the slanting rays of the late afternoon night as he looked from Yamamoto-sama to Jyuushirou-kun. “Yama-jii, you swore Ukitake to secrecy so he’ll never tell me. But don’t you think it’s high time you let us know exactly why you worked him so hard for so long? We’re now limping on half a government, we need him back fully, and we need to know everything so that we don’t make any more mistakes. You haven’t recalled him back into your service for thirty years, but we, no _I_ , need your assurance that you won’t ever drive him into the same vicious cycle of relapse and recovery again. Even before what happened to us today, nay, these past few months, the time for secrets was long past, Yama-jii.”

“You sound angry, Shunsui,” commented Yamamoto-sama blandly.

Kyouraku sighed. “Yama-jii, I’ve always been frank with you. So I’ll tell you frankly now, every time you worked Ukitake till he collapsed, I moved into the Ugendou to look after him until he was well. He’d recover, and he’d have only two days, at most three, to reconnect with his officers and mind the Thirteenth before you called him away again. Then you’d work him until he was sick again, and I’d collect him again and nurse him back to health again. And you’d call him away again. It was a never-ending cycle that made him more and more ill. I promised you I’d look after my brother always. For what’s coming next, I need to know you won’t ever do this to him again!” By his last sentences, his mellow drawl had become plaintive and angered.

“Kyouraku-” Jyuushirou-kun began, his pale expression grieved and troubled.

But Kyouraku cut him off. “I don’t want to hear it, Ukitake. It’s past time we deal with this.”

Yamamoto-sama was gazing at him inscrutably in silence.

Thus they fell silent once more, waiting for him to respond.

Finally, their old soutaichou inclined his bald head ever so slightly. “Then it is time,” he agreed in his gravelly voice. “But not here, and not now. There is something I need to do first.” His ancient red eyes settled on Jyuushirou-kun, and raising his gnarled walking stick, he began thumping towards them until he stood an arm's length before his eldest son.

For a long moment, he stared at the one he had gambled everything on and fought for against tremendous opposition to nurture and groom. Then wordlessly, he reached out one wrinkled hand across the gap between them and, with the gentleness he once used, a long time ago, on a pale, sickly fragile adolescent boy, he laid his weathered, callused palm on the right side of Jyuushirou-kun’s slender torso.

His hand began to glow green.

Jyuushirou-kun’s lean body stiffened as a sharp gasp escaped him, followed by an unsteady step backwards.

Instinctively, Retsu grasped his arm. At the same time, Kyouraku wrapped his strong tanned hand on his other arm.

The healing kaidou energy was burning, fierce, and she knew with absolute certainty, excruciating. The soutaichou’s aggressive fiery reiryoku simply could not be used for healing unless there were no other recourse. In all the five thousand years she had followed his command, she had experienced his emergency field kaidou more than a few times and knew intimately its sheer, incinerating agony.

Jyuushirou-kun’s slender chest beneath his white haori rose and fell rapidly in pained breaths as quivers coursed through his tall frame. But he made not a single sound. Stoically, he bore the brutal healing in silence, his long white fingers clenching into her sleeves as the supple muscles of his forearm tensed to rock hardness under her grip.

They stayed that way, motionless. Retsu steeled herself against interfering and schooled the ache in her heart. Her mind knew the healing session was short, but her soul felt like they were caught in an eternity in which she was helpless to lend succour.

Finally, the green glow faded, and Yamamoto-sama withdrew his hand.

When he spoke again, his gravelly voice was noticeably roughened.

“That, I think, is quite enough,” he rasped. Then added, “I would still have Retsu look you over, Jyuushirou. Preferably today. Get that cut seen to as well.”

And Retsu thought she understood.

More than any words possibly could, the brutal regenerative healing was both a punishment and a forgiveness – and of the love that Yamamoto-sama could never say in words to his gentle eldest son.

Then their soutaichou turned his gaze towards the distant group of ryoka youths.

“Inform the Human children that they are welcomed to recuperate at whichever division they prefer,” he rumbled. “Retsu, heal them in however way they may required. Then if they wish, they are free to tour the Seireitei at their leisure. With guides, of course. Please assign their guides and set a date for their return to the Gense. I would that you take care of this, Jyuushirou.”

Jyuushirou-kun’s dark eyes glimmered with emotions. He nodded once, unable to speak, his arm still trembling within Retsu’s grasp.

Much more than his offer of medical treatment and accommodations, Yamamoto-sama’s pardon, apology and gratitude were all simultaneously expressed in his use of the description ‘ _Human children_ ’ instead of the hostile term ‘ _ryoka_ ’.

Finally, the ancient red eyes looked at them again. “The three of you, please see me at my [chashitsu](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chashitsu) tomorrow evening. I have a new tin of sencha that I would like your opinions on.” With that final pronouncement, he thumped rhythmically away, and when he was sufficiently apart, his form flickered once, and was gone.

# # # # # #

Jyuushirou-kun remained leaning on them, still trembling imperceptibly and unable to speak as he schooled his body’s reaction in the wake of the harsh healing, one long white hand held against his right side.

Kyouraku watched the skies, where the soutaichou’s figure could no longer be seen. Then his gaze lowered and turned to Jyuushirou-kun. “Look at you...” he murmured, pained sadness in his expression. Absently he raised a hand and, in a gesture born of long practice, tucked a fallen strand of white hair behind a pale ear, then slid down to cup one side of the fine alabaster neck, his tanned hand contrasting against long white hair as his fingers buried among the silken tresses, before finally sliding down the wide sloping shoulder to cup its rounded slender point.

Retsu looked away from the intimate gesture. The cure was worse than the injury. She could not stem a well of displeasure, for she was a healer as much as she was a killer. Yamamoto-sama held her full and undying respect and loyalty but at times, such as this one, she silently wished the soutaichou could have chosen other forms of penalties than inflict direct physical pain on one whose health was already so frail.

Then Jyuushirou-kun patted her hand in gratitude, and gently disengaged from her grip, straightening with an audible inhale. He stood balanced and firm, no longer imperceptibly favouring his right side as she had earlier observed. Reaching up diagonally across his chest, he covered Kyouraku’s hand on his shoulder with his own pale one. “I am well,” he murmured, finally finding his voice.

Tension visibly flowed out of Kyouraku’s broad frame and after ascertaining that his soul brother could stand firm, he let go. He smiled. “So, in the end we did good, ne?”

“We were fortunate, Kyouraku.” Jyuushirou-kun began rubbing the dried blood off the side of his face with the back of his hand, as their soutaichou reminded him to do.

Kyouraku looked thoughtful. “Did you notice that Yama-jii was playing with our zanpakutou for the longest time?”

“Yes, I noticed.” His rubbing succeeded in ridding off most of the dried blood but completely missed the wound.

Retsu moved in front of him. “Here, let me.” Raising her hand to his right temple, her middle finger glowing green, she began drawing reishi from the air.

“He was delaying,” Kyouraku went on.

“Perhaps,” Jyuushirou-kun murmured noncommittally.

The cut was fine, but not deep. Head wounds always bled worse than they looked. Beneath her fingertip, the split skin drank the new reishi rapidly and its edges began to close. Rubbing her fingertip slowly left and right, she smoothed the area until no sign of the cut remained, leaving behind smooth unblemished white skin. Standing back apace, she surveyed him momentarily.

She could discern no other imbalance in his posture as he stood. However, the fine planes of his face were now almost grey with exhaustion, and the shadows beneath his dark eyes were nearly black bruises. His cheekbones seemed sharper, and his reiryoku still remained sluggish.

Sensing her scanning, he wrapped his reiatsu close and began to suppress it.

“No, you don’t,” she admonished quickly, halting him. Reluctantly, he stood still and bore her scrutiny as she shaped a kaidou field and scanned him, instantly detecting significant shadows in his reiryoku. Her eyes narrowed. “You should not have broken the Shihouin seal alone. You have quite the depletion.”

“I doubt it is the seal,” he demurred. “It was complicated and took longer than I wished but not more of an imposition than manipulating the Senkaimon by myself.” As she continued to stare penetratingly at him, he reluctantly admitted, “I have not been resting well.”

Of course. While he was the most proficient at it among all Gotei ranking officers, composing formal legal applications and appeals instead of resting to overcome a chronic illness would have already taken a serious toll before he had left the Ugendou.

Familiar sadness rose in her breast. Over the millennia of being his personal physician and sensei in the healing arts, his need for her had gradually lessened, and for several centuries now he had mostly healed himself whenever a bout took him. She knew well he did not retreat to his family estate unless he was suffering from a prolonged spell. She would carry out her orders to conduct a full examination on him later in the privacy of her clinic, but for the here and now she could speed up his rate of reiryoku replenishment.

“Hold still a moment, please.” Returning to her position before him, she pushed back the front of his white haori until the expanse of his black kosode was exposed, then spread her palms in a kaidou stance. Summoning her reiryoku, she shaped an acceleration spell then laid her hands gently on his middle, directly over his diaphragm, the seat of reiryoku in each shinigami. As she released the spell in gentle folds, she felt it bathe into his centre.

He inhaled softly as the ebbing of his reiryoku immediately surged at the stimulation, his dark eyes involuntarily closing in relief as some colour returned to his cheeks, the bloodless grey pallor fading away to his usual alabaster tone. His respiration audibly eased.

“Since Yamamoto-sama wishes me to give you a once over before the day ends, please come to my clinic before you retire tonight,” she instructed, fading the spell. It would continue to work on its own for a while.

“Hai, Senpai,” he murmured, opening his eyes. He looked down at her gratefully, unconsciously gracing her with that familiar warmth and dark doe eyes, bringing a pang to her heart.

“You know, Ukitake, Yama-jii never gunned for you like that before in the two thousand years we have been with him,” began Kyouraku softly, pewter eyes burning with barely withheld anguish. “But you kept putting yourself in front of me when you knew I could have blocked his strikes. Why did you take on everything?”

Jyuushirou-kun’s dark eyes were bleak. “I betrayed him, Kyouraku. I brought the shield here. What other conclusion could Sensei draw other than I was the initiator? How could I let you be punished for what I started?”

“Ai, my gentle brother, when will you learn that I’m in it with you whatever crazy idea you start?” Kyouraku looked and sounded exasperated, even though his love was shining in his silvery eyes.

“And when will you learn that I will always shield you from my problems, my young brother?” Jyuushirou-kun returned plaintively. “I did not want Sensei to end your life because of something I did.”

Retsu wondered at the question herself. Among their circle of four, each knew well that Yamamoto-sama loved his two disciples equally but in different ways. He shared with and relied on Kyouraku in many ways that Jyuushirou-kun’s nature was unsuited for, and Kyouraku thrived under his direct, strict and militant treatment to the point where even she sometimes deemed it as harsh. But the nature of Jyuushirou-kun required an indirect, layered handling, such that to those beyond their circle, it always appeared as though the soutaichou favoured Jyuushirou-kun the most. It was true that in their history together as sensei and disciple, Yamamoto-sama had never shown anything more severe than the occasional mild disapproval towards his gentle, elder son. Would he truly have followed through with a killing intent?

“Do you really believe he would kill us?” Kyouraku questioned with sudden intensity. “Because it did not look that way to me. He was delaying for too long.”

The smile which Jyuushirou-kun gave was very wan, and very sad. “Perhaps I worked too closely with him for too long, and that is why I believe that he would. You do not know-” He broke off suddenly, clearly deciding midway to cease whatever it was he was about to reveal, then looked away.

“I may not know whatever it is that Yama-jii shared with you. But I know that if he hurt you permanently in any way, he’ll never forgive himself, no matter how justified he had been. And then I’ll be left alone to put him back together, something I’m certain to fail at.” Kyouraku returned his hand to Jyuushirou-kun’s shoulder and gripped tight. “That’s usually your job, Ukitake. Promise me you’ll never leave me alone with him.” His pewter eyes flashed with abrupt ferocity.

Jyuushirou-kun returned his look with his dark gaze clouded with an old sorrow. “I can only try. I cannot make such a promise, you know that,” he said softly.

Kyouraku tightened his expression, then looked away and let go, a deep ache in his eyes.

Retsu kept her counsel. She no longer had any place in this intimate, millennia old argument. Thus she was surprised when Kyouraku turned to her and spoke in a low, serious tone.

“Hanshi-sama, will you aid me in a quest?”

“If it is within my power, I will.” She gave a quick glance at Jyuushirou-kun, but he had looked away, his expression distant.

“Perhaps tomorrow night, sake evening repast after tea with Yama-jii?” Kyouraku added. “I’ll think of a place.”

She accepted with a nod. “Please let me know.”

Jyuushirou-kun drew the front of his haori back over his chest, the gesture wordlessly declaring that he would respect Kyouraku’s wish and not interfere in their private arrangement.

“We would’ve held out, you know,” Kyouraku said again, a quiet confidence in his voice. “Eventually Hanshi-sama would come and rescue us. I’ve an idea we could try out. You and I perform our evasive manoeuvres to tire out Yama-jii, while Hanshi-sama heals us on the go. We can prolong our fight until we wear him out, then escape as soon as he’s wearied enough. He’ll be too tired to catch up with us.”

Retsu speared him a measuring look. “Is that a new tactic you just came up with, or something you had been thinking about for a while?”

Kyouraku smiled humourlessly at her. “I’ve always expected that one day, Ukitake and I will do something that cause Yama-jii to give us a truly sound beating. Since my beloved here has no sense of self-preservation, I’ve taken it upon myself and put some thought into saving our skins should such an incident arise.” Then he added, “I trust Hanshi-sama won’t tell Yami-jii this.”

Once more, it was not her place to interfere, but she understood even if she did not entirely agree with him. “I will keep my counsel on this, but I will tell you that I do not think Yamamoto-sama is as implacable as you perceive in matters concerning his heart. I had hoped that he would find a reason to delay his punishment, and I was correct. And you are accurate in your assumption that I would have gone in search of you. In fact, I would likely have attempted to end the conflict between you. But I would have prevented you to treat something like this as tactical practice, if you had truly done so.” Softening her voice, she concluded, “However, all these are moot now. I do not like useless theories of hindsight.” As an apology, she gestured for him to bend with her other hand. “Bend down, let me fix that.”

Kyouraku gazed appreciatively at her a moment, then gallantly presented his cheek. His gravity suddenly lifting, he arranged his face into an inflated look of worry. “Please don’t leave a scar, Hanshi-sama.”

She merely raised a brow at him, then delivered the same healing treatment as she had given Jyuushirou-kun with just a little more force than was necessary. He winced, shooting her a rueful grin which she ignored.

The healing was quick for his cut was slight as well. Once more, she rubbed her fingertip over it until it completely vanished, leaving behind unblemished tanned skin before she faded the kaidou spell. “There you go, Kyouraku Taichou. Handsome as before.”

He rubbed the spot with exaggerated care. “I do believe so,” he replied with humour.

“What say you we get to our orders?” Jyuushirou-kun voice intruded, sounding somewhat distracted.

He had shifted slightly away from them to look into the distance where the group of human youths stood around the golden light dome. “Senpai, I do not suppose the Fourth has any more room…?” His voice trailed off as a thought seemed to occur to him. “But perhaps I shall offer them accommodations at the Thirteenth tonight, if neither of you mind.”

“I cannot possibly mind. My division was wrecked yesterday by the big dark one.” Kyouraku lowered the brim of his hat. “Actually, I shall make myself at home at the Thirteenth as well. Nanao-chan wants me out of the way when she directs the repairs. I think I will take the opportunity to get to know the human children a little better.”

His curiosity in the human boy piqued her. For as long as Retsu had known Kyouraku, he had shown scant interest in associating with humans. “Let us get this over with quickly then. Evening is soon upon us.” Turning towards the distant group, she took a shunpo step.

# # # # # #

A tall, brawny shinigami with shaggy black hair sticking out from under his head bandage stood with the group of human youths. He visibly jumped out of his skin when Retsu emerged from shunpo before the group, but leapt straight into panic when Kyouraku and Jyuushirou-kun appeared beside her. His bellows were deafening.

“ _Unohana Taichou! Kyouraku Taichou! Ukitake Taichou!_ ”

Retsu ignored the ruckus, for her entire attention was arrested by the youth lying under the golden light dome. Up until this point, she had only seen him from a distance and noticed the shocking carrot orange of his hair and his hard forceful reiatsu. Now, at close quarters, her mind mentally painted his hair black, his eyes sea green, trimmed off the remnant facial baby fat, added on a little more bulk and height, and she could have been looking at the late Shiba Kaien Fukutaichou. Lowering her reiatsu barrier a little, his reiatsu punched through the gap with a searing aggression tinged with a frequency that jarred her teeth. Even at rest, it was uncontained and unyielding, leaking from him like a sieve and wafting with such familiarity that it sent her memory searching. As she focused, she detected a faint, barely there trace of a dark sourish tang. She immediately threw her barrier up again.

Kuchiki Taichou had referred to him as Kurosaki Ichigo. Two human boys stood about the panicking shinigami, one a tall dark giant, the other a slender, bespectacled youth. The human girl was kneeling beside the light dome focused intensely on her hand emitting the healing energy.

Retsu cast a glance to her side. Jyuushirou-kun’s expression was open and welcoming but in the depths of his dark eyes there was a conflict of grief and disquiet. Kyouraku’s languorous, heavy lidded expression held a keen edge of observation.

“Relax Ganju!” yelled Kurosaki Ichigo from the ground where he stiffly rose to his elbows under the light dome.

“ _Relax??!!_ ” Large brawny hands waved wildly. “Do you know who they are?? They’re the Four Pillars of the Gotei Thirteen!! They’ll kill you!” Black beady eyes speared at them from a swarthy rugged face. “Okay, Three Pillars! _And that’s my brother’s taichou!_ ”

His fear was so mixed with hatred that Retsu finally had to pay attention to him, and immediately noticed his distinctive colouring and rugged facial lines. _A Shiba clan member,_ she realised. At his word of ‘ _brother_ ’, her memory suddenly connected with an image of a young tousled boy who sometimes tagged behind the late Shiba Kaien Fukutaichou when he dropped by the Fourth to replenish Jyuushirou-kun’s medicinal herbs. _The youngest Shiba. More unexpected reappearances from this entire episode._

“Oi! Ganju, chill it!” yelled Kurosaki again, as he stiffly sat up. The light dome disappeared as the human girl sat back tiredly. “I don’t know what you’re talking about, but that’s Rukia’s boss! He’s the one who got you to hospital, you dimwit! And he destroyed the Soukyoku!” He shot Kyouraku and herself an inquiring look, his brown eyes curious. “And uh, I guess, that’s Hanatarou’s boss and Ukitake-san’s friend…?”

“I am glad to see you recovered, Ganju-kun,” Jyuushirou-kun greeted the Shiba kindly, then turned his dark eyes warmly on the leader of the human youths. “And hello again, Ichigo-kun.” He made to introduce Kyouraku and herself but was rudely interrupted.

“ _I know who he is and what he did, idiot! That’s not what I’m talking about!_ ” Visibly restraining his anger, the Shiba Ganju shifted his black eyes to Jyuushirou-kun. “Ukitake Taichou,” he bit out an acknowledgement that bordered on rude hostility. He then sent his glare left and right at Kyouraku and Retsu. “I saw you three talking to Yamamoto Soutaichou. What are you going to do to us now?”

“I think they’re here to help,” suddenly interjected a very deep male voice. It was the tall dark giant youth whose mop of unruly brown hair obscured one of his eyes. The visible eye looked at Kyouraku with honest respect. “Hello again, Kyouraku-san. You didn’t kill me when you could have. And you made sure I received medical help. Thank you.”

“Ai, you must not thank me for hitting you. I am glad to see you recovered,” Kyouraku greeted, clear relief in his voice. “You never told me your name.”

“Yasutora Sado.”

“Sado-kun.” Kyouraku tipped his straw hat in response.

“How’s Hanatarou?” demanded Shiba Ganju.

So this was the friend her Seventh Seat had said who had tried to defend him. Feeling slightly apologetic for not recalling immediately, Retsu stepped forward and spoke kindly. “Yamada-san will have additional janitor duties for a time after his penance in the brigs, nothing more. I thank you for defending my subordinate against the actions of Kuchiki Taichou.”

“Will Hanatorou be cleaning the sewers again?” Kurosaki blurted.

 _Ah, so that was how you evaded the search parties,_ Retsu mused. “Hai,” she affirmed gently. “It is already part of his regular duties. I see no reason to add additional cleaning areas.”

“And Rukia?”

“She is accompanying her brother at the Fourth Division,” Retsu reassured. “She has no injuries, but she is very weakened from her imprisonment. She will need time to recover her full strength. I believe she will be well enough to return to her division tomorrow morning if she wishes, but she must not do anything strenuous for a week.”

Kurosaki looked relieved, then suddenly seemed guilty again. “Rukia ended up giving me all her reiryoku. She doesn’t know how it happened. She said the transfer was supposed to only take half of what she has. It wasn’t her fault. She didn’t mean to transfer _everything_ to me.”

 _So he knows the proper term for a shinigami’s spiritual energy_ , Retsu observed silently, wondering how much he had been told.

“It is clear to me neither of you had a choice at that moment,” assured Jyuushirou-kun. Then with a cautious note that was discernible only to Retsu and Kyouraku, he went on. “Do not blame yourself. We still do not know what caused such a malfunction in the transfer, but rest assured that we will investigate.”

“Will you tell us when you find out what happened?”

“I suppose both of you will need to know, since it concerns you,” replied Jyuushirou-kun, then uncertainly, asked, “Perhaps we could compare notes? If you find out the cause before we do, let me know and we can study the findings together.”

Kurosaki nodded. “I will. Good idea.”

“Don’t trust them too much, Ichigo!” insisted Ganju.

“Will you stop it?” Kurosaki scolded with irritation. “You think they’d help us save Rukia if they intend to kill us?”

“It could be a ruse-”

“Come on!”

“ _But you don’t know shinigami like I do!_ ” Ganju suddenly exploded, then quickly subsided, embarrassed and angry. He looked around without meeting anyone’s eyes, then threw up his big hands. “I’m going home! You all can stay here and chit chat with them since you don’t need me anymore. Goodbye!” He prepared to turn, then suddenly stopped and speared Jyuushirou-kun a look of pure hurt. “Onii-san had many sensei, but he loved and worshipped only you like you were our father, Ukitake Taichou. _Don’t let anyone else die._ ” And then he spun and was off, disappearing into a dust trail speeding towards the forest line.

Retsu turned in alarm, in time to see the parting shot wound Jyuushirou-kun like an unseen blade and spill his deeply contained grief over him like blood. Kyouraku tensed imperceptibly as Kurosaki Ichigo stiffly rose to his feet with visible anger.

Instead of attacking, the only aggressive act the human youth did was to rake his fingers over the orange spikes of his hair in frustration. “ _What_ ’s his _problem_?” he demanded, uncomprehending and affronted. “Why does he sound like he hates shinigami? _I’m_ a shinigami! Does that mean he hates me all along?” His brown eyes searched Jyuushirou-kun for answers. “Why does Ganju hate you so much, Ukitake-san?”

“Please do not take it personally.” Jyuushirou-kun’s voice was slightly faint, before it strengthened and saddened. “Ganju does not hate anyone. He still grieves.” Then in a rasp, murmured, “As do I.”

Kurosaki watched him thoughtfully for a moment. “It looks to me like whatever it was that happened, it hurt you as much as it hurt him.”

Jyuushirou-kun was silent for a moment, his dark eyes distant and raw. When he spoke, his voice was slightly hoarse. “A very wise man once taught me… when one becomes a sensei for a day, one becomes a parent for life. No parent should have to bury his child, Ichigo-kun. But a sensei who is a parent must protect his child’s honour above all else.” He collected himself and focused on the group of human youths, putting aside his emotions with a wan smile. “However, we should not be discussing such things here and now. How are all of you feeling? Are your injuries healing well? We are here to offer accommodations and medical treatment. And,” he paused, looking around the youthful faces, added belatedly, “I do not believe we know all of your names.”

“I’m Kurosaki Ichigo, but I guess you already know that. These are my friends, Inoue Orihime, and Ishida Uryuu.” Kurosaki gestured to his side. “Cha-Sado, you just heard him introduce himself.”

The human girl waved with a sweet, if weary smile, as she rose to her feet demurely. “Hello, taichou-sama.” Next to Kurosaki, the slender, bespectacled youth nodded in greeting, the straight ends of his chin-length black hair bobbing slightly. His stiff manners said more about his personality than his current injuries.

Kurosaki’s brown eyes turned to Jyuushirou-kun. “Anyway, it’s good to see you again, Ukitake-san. I didn’t know it was you on the bridge that day until Yoruichi told me later. I learnt your name from Rukia, but she never showed me any photos of you. If I’d known her boss was there that day, I would’ve confronted Byakuya in a different way.”

“I am pleased we are now properly introduced, Ichigo-kun,” replied Jyuushirou-kun, then said firmly, “I would have stopped Byakuya if Yoruichi had not shown up. No matter what kind of rules are in force, no zanpakutou should be released when there are those who are injured and weak in its direct path. Byakuya’s skill is extremely lethal and there would have been innocent casualties.”

“I don’t think he cared about anything at that time other than killing all of us,” said Kurosaki bluntly. “He’s Rukia’s brother and I can’t be mad at him. I just don’t understand why he sided with something so unfair! If the rules are unfair then fight the rules! Don’t obey them by killing his own sister!”

Jyuushirou-kun held up a quelling hand. “Byakuya is the head of one of the greatest noble clans. I cannot speak for him. I can only share that his position cannot be easily understood by those who do not bear the same burdens.” He paused, then suggested kindly, “Perhaps when he is recovered enough to converse, you may wish to speak to him.”

“Maybe I will. No position should make a man want to kill his own sister over some unreasonable law!” The orange head shook with incredulity, the youthful brown eyes looking at Jyuushirou-kun with respect. “Unlike you. You destroyed the Soukyoku to save Rukia. I didn’t realise it then. I only took the opportunity you created. But just now before I passed out, Rukia told me you committed treason to save her. I thought about it and now, I realised you stood up for what was right at terrible cost to yourself, and saved me along the way. I don’t think I’m strong enough right now to match ten million zanpakutou.”

“Right now, eh?” drawled Kyouraku with humour, his pewter gaze deceptively lazy from beneath heavy lids. “Perhaps if you can find us a nicer way than Aizen’s methods to fuse the powers of shinigami, Hollows and some others, we may possibly have a slight chance to oppose such an attack without using dangerous artefacts, ne?”

Kurosaki opened his mouth to reply, then seemed to think better of it and shut it again. Then he looked at Jyuushirou-kun with open concern. “Are you alright now, Ukitake-san? Rukia told me the soutaichou went after you. Inoue can help if you are injured. I owe you a debt and my thanks. This is the least I can do to repay you.”

Nonplussed and surprised, Jyuushirou-kun gazed at Kurosaki for a wordless moment. “I am well,” he said finally, wonder in his voice. “However, it is I who should be saying these words to you. You saved my subordinate whom I value highly, and in the process did us all a great service. I believe I do not speak only for myself when I say that Soul Society owes you an immeasurable debt for exposing a great evil living among us.” He looked at the entire group. “We owe all of you. Your actions here revealed Aizen for what he truly is.” Looking back at Kurosaki, he asked sincerely, “It is I who should ask, what can we do for you in return?”

“Uh, in return?” Kurosaki creased his nose and scratched his head, as if he never thought about receiving repayment before. “Right now, I just want a bath, eat and sleep. Go see Rukia and Renji, then go home. So if you are offering us a place to stay, yeah, we’ll take it.”

“We can fulfil that!" Jyuushirou-kun beamed. "Do you wish to stay with any particular division? The Fourth is quite full at the moment, and while most of the shinigami you know are from the Eleventh, I do not think their barracks will be peaceful for the remainder of your recovery. As you know, the Thirteenth is Rukia’s division and I am certain our kitchens are equipped to provide you with a satisfying and nourishing evening meal. I can offer our very nice officers’ onsen as well. Would you like to come to the Thirteenth?”

“Onsen sounds wonderful!” exclaimed Orihime. “Can we explore your city as well? I haven’t seen the nice places.”

“Why yes, that is the other question I wish to ask. Would any of you like a guided tour of the Seireitei before you return home? We have quite a few beautiful sights here-” He stopped himself as a thought occurred to him. “But perhaps you no longer wish to do see our city…” he trailed off uncertainly.

However, Orihime clasped her hands together in visible excitement. “I would love a tour! I want to see how shinigami live. Are all your houses like the ones we saw? What other kinds of clothes do you wear? Do you have shops that sell other kinds of Soul Phones like our phone shops? What is the most popular food? Do you have chocolate?” Then as if remembering her friends, she flushed and quickly added, “That is, if you all also want to see the same things…”

“I want,” spoke the Ishida youth for the first time, as he gave a small smile to Orihime. His bespectacled gaze went to Jyuushirou-kun. “Do you have fabric or haberdashery shops? What kind of money do you use?”

“Do shinigami train with weights?” This was from the giant youth Sado.

“You know, I think I want to see what sports you play,” Kurosaki joined in. “Do you have soccer?

The barrage of energetic questions flew so fast and furiously that Jyuushirou-kun involuntarily took a step back from the unexpected lively noise. He raised his hands placatingly. “Ai! I think we can accommodate all your wishes. And while we are waiting for the evening meal, Unohana Taichou here can take the opportunity to complete your healing so that you will be well enough to move about tomorrow. Is that acceptable?”

“Then it’s set,” Kurosaki declared, his expansive manner speaking for the entire group. “We would love to stay with you until we go home.”

Jyuushirou-kun smiled warmly. “These are merely basic hospitality. Is there anything else we can do for you? Anything I can offer you in my personal capacity?”

“Personally from you?” Kurosaki’s brown eyes suddenly gazed unblinkingly at Jyuushirou-kun. “I have one request, Ukitake-san.”

“Please, tell me.”

At the invitation, Kurosaki walked towards them until he stood right before Jyuushirou-kun. Reaching up a hand, and completely oblivious to his own flaming carrot orange spikes, he pointed at a stray tress of long white hair and asked, ingenuously, “Can you tell me, is that your _real_ hair colour?”

They stared at the youth. Then abruptly, Jyuushirou-kun burst into a peal of laughter. The mirthful sound rang over the hilltop like bells, so carefree, so unfettered, so free of grief and pain, that Kyouraku erupted in deep rumbles, and Retsu felt her own chuckles escape, as her hope rose that Jyuushirou-kun could finally begin to heal his heart.


	3. Diagnoses And Uncertain Cures

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The terrible day that nearly upended everything finally winds down. Unohana returns to the Fourth to await her last patient, Jyuushirou, and tries to suppress her feelings at how he still remembers her small habits like her dietary requirements. She momentarily loses herself to memories of how she had once loved him, and made love to him, with the passion of her unhindered killer's soul. Then who should show up to disrupt her reminiscence but Shihouin Yoruichi, former warrior sister and old rival in love. They discuss the human youths, who seem to present a cure to the inflexibility and complacency of the government of Soul Society, but also double-edged swords, and mend their old sisterhood. They bury their old love rivalry, but it also flames to life Unohana's long abiding love for her warrior-scholar Jyuushirou amid her reawakened blood lust, driving her to finally press him to share the secret of the dark power concealed within his chest. Yet, despite these awakenings, in the end she realises that what has passed is best kept in the past, and allows herself to revel in vivid fond memories of long silken white hair beneath the light of the distant moon.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ABOUT YORUICHI AS UKITAKE'S PAST LOVER: Blame it entirely on the animators! In the anime, Yoruichi meets Ukitake for the first time after a century on the bridge of the Senzaikyuu, and her voice softens as she says his name, "Ukitake". A woman can only sound like that when speaking the name of a man she loves or still holds a secret light for! So taking that cue, I've run with it as useful plot device in this spin-off, which shall be explained later in Part 4.
> 
> ABOUT UNOHANA'S CONCERNS WITH THE HUMAN YOUTHS: Present day Gotei mostly do not know of Unohana's past, and she hides it extremely well. However she is a defender of Soul Society first and foremost, security is always her prime concern, hence it will be entirely out of character for someone like her to welcome Kurosaki and gang with open arms without question.

The chaotic bloody day of upheavals and emotional tumults was winding down to a paradoxically peaceful night. Retsu walked unhurriedly on her rounds, satisfied with the discreet shimmers of increased numbers of reiatsu barriers around the beds so that her patients could rest undisturbed by one another. The night shift had been temporarily enlarged, the soft whirring from additional medical machines louder than usual, as were the scores of sleep rumbles and snores from an increased number of patients. New energy suffused her from the tonic she had partaken with her evening repast at the Thirteenth, refreshing her mental clarity. When she detected a few minor mistakes made by her wearied subordinates, she wordlessly corrected them without fuss. Finally, she left instructions at the first aid station for the removal of bandages for the human youths the next day, then began heading to her office, where she would prepare for her last patient in its adjoining examination room.

The thought of her last patient flushed her with anticipatory warmth. In one simple meal, Jyuushirou-kun had unconsciously revealed that the passage of a thousand years not only had not dimmed his memory of her requirements, he had upkept his division’s facilities for her needs as well. Retsu’s personal tonic recipes called for a specific combination of herbs which she had cultivated for two millennia from the live stems and roots presented to her by the late, great Lady Shihouin in those early days of the Gotei. Over time, in collaboration with the Seventeenth Head of the Shihouin Clan with whom she became sisters-in-arms, Retsu bred new and more potent species from them, more than half of which she transferred to Jyuushirou-kun and were now produced exclusively and perennially in the Thirteenth hothouses to support his health with his every meal. It had been a near millennia since she taken a meal at his premises, thus when she saw tonight that all her dishes had been impeccably prepared to her exact recipes, made from clearly freshly harvested herbs, it told her plainly without words that her protégé still cultivated her specific herbs catering to her specific needs. She had been stunned, and when she had caught his eyes tonight to show her surprise and pleasure, he had simply smiled in that quiet, warm way of his and without the slightest guile, said that he never forgot his teacher.

With one innocent thoughtful act, Jyuushirou-kun had unknowingly touched her soul deep to a place she had long ago interred in its violent recesses. What it implied of his regard for her moved her as buoyantly as the fresh energy in the seat of her reiryoku. She held the precious feeling close, carefully secreting it within the space she kept under mental and emotional locks of iron will, together with her most recent fear that she would lose him as a result of Aizen's manipulations. Calm and disquiet chased through her composure, the divergent feelings rebelling against the barrier of serenity she had worn for over eight hundred years. The feelings rode on the heady circulation of her fresh reiatsu, revelling in the revelation that Jyuushirou-kun so cherished their past. They distracted her mind, led her instincts running in worrying directions, and made her reluctant to stem the millennium old memories welling from the place she visited only in her most private moments.

She knew, from old, old experience, that this was a dangerous state of being for her to be in.

She entered the wing of her office and private examination room. The corridors were deserted, and she took the momentary privacy to gather herself. The cool walls met her hand as she paused, bracing herself against the side of the empty hallway. She could feel Minazuki begin to awaken to the unquenchable thirst that had always simmered deep beneath her barrier, and quickly lulled her zanpakutou with a wordless stroke on its hilt. She had not felt this restlessness and craving for over eight centuries. Her instincts were beginning to hum with the ancient familiar keenness that once upon a time had unerringly targeted their kills. The thirst and the instinct pushed at her now, their rising clamour to be set free starting to cloud her clarity with miasmata of violent desires. It would take only her slightest relaxation for them to escape her steely imprisonment, and she willed serenity over them, intent on resealing the base recesses of her soul.

Yet, with a rising unsettling realisation, she felt a treacherous unwillingness in her soul to rebury its darker head, as a dreadfully familiar sensation began arousing her very bones and whispering in her very reishi that they had entered a lull, one which portended a great unknown storm that could not yet be discerned,

She firmly ignored the whisperings and forebodings. _We have restored the balance,_ she mentally, overtly reminded herself. _It will hold for a time. There is no reason to feel this way this prematurely._

But her memory betrayed her. During the evening feast, Kyouraku had let an occasional dark brooding escape his lazy, friendly demeanour, and a fey inward look in Jyuushirou-kun’s dark eyes had intermittently surfaced as he chatted affably with his human guests, and she knew irrefutably that they, too, felt the portent.

Surely, they still had time. _We still have time._

 **|** _Not nearly enough time._ **|**

She involuntarily covered her mouth at the intrusion. When was the last time she had heard this voice?

No. Their rescuers had saved them with bizarre yet impressively strong powers which comforted and gave them hope. They had new allies, perhaps even new cures to strengthen their weaknesses. There were unknowns about their saviours but with steady dedication they could solve those mysteries and use the knowledge to prepare for the impending storm. She resolutely suppressed the sense of alarm roused by the auras of their powers, and tried to rationalise the edge of threat she felt from their reiatsu.

It was futile. The dichotomous feelings would not subside.

She had not felt this conflicted in over a thousand years.

The last time this sensation had plagued her was in the final century of the last millennium, when she had stood united with her three co-pillars and led their armies to quell the increasing violence and incursions from the north. Her rising premonitions then about their strange new enemy had climbed inexorably until her instincts literally screamed at her, but she had found nothing that could give clarity to her foreboding. Then in the ninety-ninth year, the conflicts culminated in a full out war but the final assault had blindsided them from such an unexpected quarter and struck so terribly into their centre, that in grim terrible vengeance Yamamoto-sama had left their ranks in the middle of the night and gone north alone. Soon after the air had seared to cinders and the realm had quaked with fiery forces. When the soutaichou returned days later, unharmed, victorious, he bore such a deep bleakness in his red eyes that she knew she could not ask. He never spoke of his final battle, and none had dared to pry.

 _This is not the case now,_ she told herself, leaning against the supportive wall.

 **|** _This is a different case, but will be no less terrible._ **|**

The voice again.

Her hand clenched over the hilt of Minazuki and she stared at in reprove and fear. Her zanpakutou had not spoken this clearly to her in an eon.

 **|** _I have always talked to you. You only never really heard._ **|**

 _Have I not?_ she mentally asked.

 **|** _You should follow his example and spend more time in jinzen._ **|**

The clear rebuke forced her to set aside her reactionary fear. Focusing fully on her disquiet, she compelled herself to examine the feeling.

It was the same. Of equal parts hope and equal parts dread.

A millennium ago, this feeling would have driven her from her bed and sent her seeking Jyuushirou-kun at the Thirteenth. He would have invited her to share his evening meal on the verandah of his private quarters, and would have listened to her disjointed words as she fought to crystallise the unease eating at her inner world.

 **|** _You can still do that now._ **|**

_I cannot. He does not belong to me now._

**|** _He was never yours at any time. But he gave you what he had. And he will still give you now if you ask._ **|**

In response, the long buried recesses of her soul pushed restlessly, straining for release. She suppressed it, stroking down its yearning.

 **|** _He never judged you. He is the only one who never judged you and loved you for what you are._ **|**

Jyuushirou-kun had never judged her, never blinked an eye each time she confided the warnings her instincts screamed at her with the perpetual blood lust of her inner soul. Instead he had always calmly, and patiently, reasoned and theorised with her until she would soon be embroiled in ideas and explorations of tactical and healing strategies, her killing thirst directed into planning their defence and counter strikes instead of twisting itself in useless anxieties and worries.

 **|** _Yes, he always did that for you. He will do it for you again._ **|**

They had shared innumerable discourse over remains of countless evening meals, their discussions in turns pragmatic, profound and passionate. She remembered how his long lashed mahogany eyes had flashed as his deep tenor alternated between clinical observations and impassioned counterpoints as they debated and argued, until moonlight slid over the verandah and limned in ethereal luminescence his silken hair and skin, setting in alabaster glow his delicate masculinity as he illustrated his words with elegant gestures of long angular hands.

 **|** _Yes, he was breathtaking._ **|**

At times, she would draw their debates to conclusions which could be put into action, and leave his company with new clarity, calm and purpose.

 **|** _But those are not the times you cherish the most._ **|**

At other times, aroused by their intense discussions, her entire soul would watch enthralled as moonlight loved every fine plane and curve of his face as he spoke ardently, the lyrical timbre of his deep tenor voice matching his gentle poetic beauty, recalling to her mind memories of his gifted prowess and immense elemental power wringing reverence from thousands of rough, battle-scarred soldiers and thugs as they rallied to his pale porcelain figure like a demon horde. And she had simply taken his hand in mid passionate discourse, led him inside, and in darkness slanted with moon rays, unsealed her own blood lust and with her own clandestine invasions, slaked her violent thirst on his lithe pliable body, consuming his trembling surrender, entangling with his long limbs falling onto dark silks, her hands grasping thick slippery streams of silken white hair, her senses intoxicated on the soft peony musk of his white silken skin, on his breathless moans low and mellifluous in her ears… and memories suffused her with ghosting sense assault of _the insatiable hunger of her mouth on the fine fragrant pulse in the slender arch of his white yielding throat... the supple strength of him straining and shaking helpless against her thighs, the soft cries of him caged between her arms, the sweet capitulation of him defenceless beneath her relentless hilt callused fingers…_ and they had fought together, lain together, conquered one uprising after another humanely and compassionately in a distinct departure from their brutal counter strikes of the millennium before.

She could not hide from Minazuki. In her deepest heart of hearts she yearned for those times, when Soul Society had been violent, less rigid, less bound by rules.

When she herself had been unbound by proprieties and had simply taken what she desired.

 **|** _Now you understand._ **|**

Yes, she understood. If there was one lesson she learned from this long turbulent day, it was that time ran through fingers like water from the ocean, never to be regained, never to be held, only to be remembered. She had what she had. And if she could have it again, she would reach for it and hold it, no matter how briefly she was allowed.

 **|** _Let me help you. You do not need to stand alone._ **|**

And for the first time in eight hundred years, Retsu obeyed her instincts, unsealing her iron cloak of serenity for just a crack, and allowing through a faint tendril of the ceaselessly questing violent desire to pass into the forefront of her soul. The enervating dark reverie receded with slow reluctance from her mind, leaving behind an intoxicating fog that fused with her mantle of calm, elevating her into a new height of placidity which simmered with an equal readiness to strike. Then a tingle prickled the edge of her senses.

She raised her head.

There was still no one present in the passage. Quiet hushed the corridor.

As she waited, the carefully hidden reiatsu uncurled minutely in clear invitation, its underlying signature whimsical and observant.

It belonged to a reiryoku she had not sensed in a hundred years.

With her new state of being, she uncurled her reiatsu and gently touched a viscous drop of her acceptance on the invitation. Straightening, she composed her outward demeanour and posture, and began moving down the hallway, completing the familiar route until she stopped at the door of her private clinic.

Gathering herself, she turned the knob and entered without knocking.

A dark-skinned woman stood waiting for her at the back of the room, a small glass container of herbs in one hand, the door of a particular wall cabinet left ajar behind her. Golden eyes glowed as a slow, half smile curled a pair of lips that always wore a hint of mischief.

“Retsu-sama,” greeted Shihouin Yoruichi, the ringing timbre of her purring alto sounding exactly like it had a hundred years ago.

# # # # # #

Shutting the door behind her, Retsu turned and took a few steps into the room, coming to a pause before the woman with whom she had once shared a warrior sisterhood, absently noting that the woman had located without aid the special cabinet where she kept all her remedies for every taichou.

Women occupied very few leadership positions in the Gotei, and they had been the only female taichou during the centuries they had served together. It had made them unite on certain issues, such as when another female officer was nominated for promotion or commendation. Compared to Retsu’s friendship with the late great female Seventeenth Head of the Shihouin Clan, her relationship with Yoruichi had not been close, but had borne sufficient respect and sisterly enough regard that it could be called a friendship.

“Yoruichi-san,” she collected herself enough to return the greeting. _Why did you disappear without a word? Did you finally decide that Kisuke meant more to you than your whimsical liaisons with one whom you should never have touched?_ As soon as the uncharitable thought rose Retsu quashed it. It stemmed entirely from her own unresolved resentment and had no bearing on the truth.

She searched for changes in her former colleague’s appearance but found little. Perhaps the purple hair was longer, drawn into a high voluminous ponytail, the form more svelte and softened with curves rather than lined with hard muscles, and the clothing rather strange and revealing, black and hugging her entire figure like a second skin and covered with nothing but a short orange outer garment that Retsu had no name for. But otherwise, Shihouin Yoruichi was essentially still the same.

 _Or perhaps not quite the same,_ Retsu mentally amended. There was a new depth in those golden eyes which made her wonder what they had seen in the last century.

“That was impressive, performing jinzen while doing your rounds,” complimented her visitor with open admiration. “I was surprised I could sense you until I realised you were speaking with your zanpakutou. Otherwise all you elders are just invisible to the likes of us until you physically appear.”

“It was nothing,” Retsu demurred. Then with genuine sincerity, she asked, “How have you been?”

“Never been better,” purred the woman with a full open smile. “Living as a soul among humans for a hundred years opened my eyes in ways I never expected.”

“Kurosaki-san and his friends mentioned you are living with Urahara-san. How is he? He took a great risk aiding them to come here.”

“These days Kisuke likes to call himself a plain old candy store owner and a mere honest, handsome and perverted businessman. His words, not mine. As for me, I mainly live in the cat tree in his bedroom.” She tugged at the collar of her orange outer garment with a slight grimace. “I’ve forgotten how restrictive clothing are. Most of the time I forget to put them on when I leave my cat form.”

Retsu raised her eyebrows. “Do you walk around his bedroom naked?”

“Only when I’m in the mood to entice him into a romp.”

The blunt confession shocked her. Her reaction must have been transparent for it drew a throaty burst of laughter from the dark-skinned woman.

“I’ve forgotten how old fashioned you elders are!” chortled Yoruichi with what Retsu thought was a subtle disparagement, if she were to be petty. Subsiding, her former colleague added with a roguish glint, “I spend most of my time as a cat because wearing no clothes is extremely freeing. A perfect cure for the suffocating strictures of perceptions and propriety around here, don’t you think?”

“Soul Society was not always this steeped in traditions,” Retsu reminded.

“Ai, yes. And it takes an elder to remind me of my history lessons,” grinned Yoruichi. Then abruptly falling into a sombre mood, she said, “I warned Kisuke that if Ichigo failed and got himself and his friends killed, the Central Forty-Six will no longer turn a blind eye to allowing him to retain his powers. He’ll be persecuted to the letter of the edict if the kids make a big mess here and still failed, and not even Genji-sama then will be able to help him. But he never listened to me. This is why I decided to reveal my location finally and came along on this mission. I had to prevent the kids from getting themselves killed and failing in what they came here to do.”

“They succeeded spectacularly,” Retsu commended, then added, “Even if they did cause an uproar.” Finally regaining her usual degree of inner equanimity, she allowed a small smile. “But all that is well ended well. They had good and pure intentions and because of that they found like-minded allies in the Gotei. I noticed a black cat prowling the rooftops opposite the mess hall. As did Kyouraku and Jyuushirou-kun. We wondered why you did not join our evening repast. The Thirteenth’s kitchens pulled out all stops to impress their taichou and his guests. You missed a veritable feast.”

“Believe me, I was sorely tempted!” Yoruichi gave a lusty sigh. “You won’t believe how much more heavenly the aroma of great food smells to a cat’s nose. And the size of the spread! It seems the Thirteenth's kitchens still keep a fearsome reputation for their culinary feats.” She laughed her throaty laugh, then her mirth quickly simmered into a glint in her golden eyes. “I didn’t join you because I wanted to observe Ichigo. I need to know how he’ll behave towards shinigami after they stop trying to kill him. Genji-sama is wise to assign Ukitake this task. There is no other taichou or division who will be this open or as warm and welcoming without challenging him to a fight. And I noticed Ichigo seems to be developing a case of hero worship for Ukitake. Poor Orihime. Poor Uryuu.” She laughed again. “A teenage love triangle seems to have grown right under my nose on this mission.”

“Teen-age?” The term was unfamiliar to Retsu.

“Youths,” Yoruichi supplied with a grin. “A term I picked up from humans for children their age.”

“Like they name the Denreishinki a Soul Phone?”

“Exactly,” laughed Yoruichi again. “Simple and inventive, don’t you think?”

“I think there are many other simpler solutions we can pick up from humans,” Retsu opined, reflecting on the century of unnecessary sleight of hand and machinations that had went into engineering Kuchiki Rukia’s execution by the Soukyoku. If Aizen wanted the power of the Hougyoku, he had certainly chosen a roundabout way of obtaining it.

“To the point as ever, Retsu-sama,” observed Yoruichi.

Retsu inclined her head in acknowledgement. “I am a healer. My job involves saving lives. When a shinigami is about to die, I have no time for layered dialogue.” Then she gestured at the jar of herbs in Yoruichi’s hand. “That is a fresh batch of recovery tonic for wounds inflicted by the poison of a very specific bee. Are you well?”

“Ai, Soi Fon,” sighed Yoruichi with some exasperation, looking at the jar in her hand. “She insists that I take it. But otherwise I am well, thank you for asking.”

“Your sudden reappearance must have thrown Soi Fon Taichou for quite the loop.”

Yoruichi began tossing the small jar from hand to hand in a heart-stopping juggle. “She’s still as extreme and unbending as ever. Nothing has changed for her. Everything is still black or white. Her loyalty is priceless, but I doubt she’ll ever learn the colours of grey. As a pair, the combination of Genji-sama and Soi Fon will probably end up allowing a repeat of this whole sorry episode at a date very near in the future.” She stopped her juggling, suddenly smiling. “Fortunately, the Gotei Thirteen has never been driven by only the two of them.”

“We need temperaments like Soi Fon Taichou. There are enough greys among the rest of us to balance her.”

“Spoken like a true pillar of the Gotei Thirteen,” remarked Yoruichi with respect in her eyes. Then without preamble, she asked, “So what do you think of Kurosaki Ichigo?”

Comprehension dawned. “Your real purpose for coming here is to seek my opinion about him,” Retsu stated.

“You can say that.” Yoruichi tilted her head in an uncanny mimicry of the creature form she favoured. “I need to compare notes with high level shinigami who had come into contact with his reiryoku. I’m not going to bother asking Byakuya-bo, even though he fought Ichigo a few times. That boy is hopelessly lost in his own angst and blind to other people’s problems.”

“Is that not a little harsh?”

“I tell it like it is. And forget Zaraki, Son Fon tells me that one has zero ability to use his reiatsu for sensing. The rest Ichigo fought do not yet have the level of sensing ability to detect anything different.” Golden eyes looked at her honestly. “There are only four in the Gotei Thirteen now who can read deeply into a reiryoku. You’re one of them.”

“Why would my opinion matter?”

Yoruichi gazed at her slyly. “Answering a question with a question? You’ve been spending time with Kyouraku, it seems.”

Retsu felt a little put out by the suggestion. “ _That one_ , Yoruichi-san, will never influence me in any way.”

“Never say never, Retsu-sama. A hundred years spent in the Living World showed me that all tomorrows are unpredictable no matter how well we plan ahead.”

The words were uncharacteristically contemplative coming from a woman whom Retsu used to know as disinclined to philosophy. She looked at her former colleague with a new awareness.

“So about Ichigo…”

Retsu took a moment to organise her thoughts into clinical terms. “Kurosaki-san has a reiryoku that is hard, fierce and forceful. There is nothing soft or subtle about it. But that is typical of an aggressive type. His reiatsu signature has a frequency that reminds me of a Quincy, and there is also a tang of Hollow in it. I would fear it, if not for the familiarity of his shinigami signature. For some reason, Kurosaki-san’s reiatsu reminds me of a colleague we lost twenty years ago, Shiba Isshin Taichou. He was appointed taichou after you left, so you will not know him. If Kurosaki-san is related to Isshin-san, it will explain how his personality and appearance so resemble the late Shiba Kaien Fukutaichou. But if they are unrelated, then the only answer is there was a reincarnation of Shiba Kaien’s soul. I simply do not believe in such near coincidences to explain this in any other way.”

There was a slight awe in Yoruichi’s expression. “You detected all that from one healing session?”

“I have been healing reiryoku for a very long time, Yoruichi-san.” Then Retsu looked at her sharply. “But do not pretend. I think you already know these and only wish to have your own senses confirmed.”

Yoruichi shook her head slightly. “I wasn’t pretending. I took much longer than you to figure out that Ichigo has other powers in him besides shinigami powers, but until you just told me, I couldn’t make any connection, all his powers are so fused together I can hardly distinguish them.” She paused, tapping a finger on her chin. “When Ichigo was first introduced to me, he had a pure shinigami reiryoku and he’d learnt some fighting techniques from Rukia. He asked Kisuke to train him for this mission, but this boy isn’t someone you can teach. So Kisuke just beat him to death until he forced the kid into shikai and then sent him here. When I was healing him after his fight with Zaraki I found a broken mask in his kosode. He said it was his good luck charm but it disturbed me greatly because it looked like a fragment of a Hollow’s mask. When I used the Tenshintai to help him achieve bankai, there was another sensation in his reiatsu that sent my fur standing.” Her golden eyes looked at Retsu gratefully. “I didn’t make the connection with Quincy and Hollow powers. This is why I need an elder’s perspective.”

“I am convinced Kurosaki-san knows very little about the nature of his powers,” Retsu offered. “If Urahara-san and you wish to continue training this boy, perhaps some self-discovery lessons are in order. His heart is pure, but I have seen too many times that the road to hell is always generously paved with good intentions. It is best he knows as much about himself as possible so that he can learn to use his gifts without harming anyone.”

“I understand. You’ve given me much to think.” Yoruichi looked thoughtful.

“I would also try to get to know Ishida Uryuu better and watch him more closely,” Retsu decided to add.

“Uryuu?”

“I am sure both Urahara-san and you know Ishida-san is a Quincy. The last war with Quincies was slightly over two hundred years ago, it is not so ancient that you have forgotten.”

“Well, I can share that Uryuu tends to remind Ichigo that he’s a Quincy and therefore they’re enemies. But what should Kisuke and I be concerned about?”

“Ishida-san is a nice boy with good intentions. While I was healing him, he had no active reiryoku that I could detect, only a lingering signature that was fading very quickly. I managed to capture its essence and identify him as a Quincy before it slipped away. He knew I had caught him, but when I asked him privately, he denied he is a Quincy. I do not know his reason for his denial. His personality is closed, it is difficult to gauge his thoughts and emotions. From what I could observe of his interactions with the others, I sensed he was deliberately keeping his nature hidden. His motivations for doing this unsettle me greatly. I do not think he has bad intentions, but I fear he may keep so much to himself that he inadvertently commits great harm. And that is my fighting instincts speaking, not my healer’s heart.”

“I’ll take note of it.”

“Please make sure you do. Urahara-san as well, since he is clearly training all of them.”

“I’ll tell Kisuke.” The reply was more perfunctory than convinced.

It was clear that the new generation still had their own minds. Deciding that it was pointless to insist, Retsu turned away and walked to her instrument cabinets. There was only one piece of equipment that she truly needed, and that was the reishi sensor she had purchased from Kurotsuchi Mayuri with a full load of rare herbs flown to the Twelfth Division on Minazuki’s back. It was an elegantly simple and effective device that was activated by reiatsu but so precise that only a masterful control by the user could produce the intended results. Opening her drawers, she found its parts and began to assemble the instrument.

“Actually, I came here for another matter as well, Retsu-sama.”

“I am listening,” she answered as she worked.

There was a silence, and then tentatively, with uncharacteristic tenderness, Yoruichi said, “Ukitake… he seemed well tonight.”

Retsu momentarily stilled, then carried on with the assembly. The sensor was in two parts, the scope and its wand.

“I met him on the Senzaikyuu bridge yesterday,” Yoruichi went on, with that atypical tenderness. “Like how it’d always been with him as an elder, I still could not sense him.” Regret suddenly filled her voice. “But I never knew he could speak with such coldness.”

“That is because you have not truly fought beside him,” Retsu informed without turning.

Another silence, followed by a hesitant, “Has he… been well?”

Abruptly, a flash of anger speared through Retsu’s cloak of placidity. Unprepared for the old viciousness, she quickly collected herself and soothed the recently released part of her soul. Very carefully, she laid down the half assembled delicate instrument and turned around.

Yoruichi was gazing at her expectantly, and had they not shared the same history once, Retsu would have missed the genuine worry in the other woman’s dark-skinned features.

“Perhaps you may wish to visit Jyuushirou-kun yourself after this,” Retsu suggested neutrally.

“I intend to return to the Thirteenth. Their celebration should be over soon.”

“If you are seeking him in his private quarters there, do not bother. He moved to the Ugendou three weeks ago. I believe you know the location.”

Unbidden, memories rose of that one night which had stalled Retsu’s developing friendship with her former sister warrior. She had arrived at the Ugendou prepared to once again persuade her protégé to take the hanshi healer examinations, only to spy a black cat darting across the roof and vanishing into shunpo. Then the blinds over the pavilion entryway had rolled up, and the master of the estate had emerged, the thin front of his white [nagajuban](https://www.oldjapan.org/menskimono/glossary.html) askew beneath long dishevelled white hair, his shoulders loosely draped in that old heavy quilted maroon long yukata, his colour wan from a prolonged bout, but his skin and reiatsu unmistakably scenting of recent carnal ravishment. He had greeted her but she had left quickly, and had to spend several weeks to regain her equilibrium before she could speak to him again.

She should not have been shocked or upset by the discovery, for her relationship with him was long in the past. But her soul was the worst of the desire type not given to easy forgiveness, and in her darkest most private nights she had allowed herself to feel like there had been a rape of her territory. Her silent resentment soon rose to a point when Retsu began to decline her fellow female taichou’s overtures to deepen their informal sisterhood. If Yoruichi understood she said nothing, and continued her whimsical liaisons with Jyuushirou-kun. Then a hundred years later, she disappeared without a word after Urahara’s exile and Retsu lost any opportunity to mend the bridge.

“Is he not well?” Yoruichi was asking with palpable concern.

“He has never been well in the usual definition of that word,” Retsu found herself answering with a slight waspishness, then forcibly subsided her ire. More evenly, she informed, “His last prolonged spell was when the Hollow named Metastacia took the life of Shiba Kaien Fukutaichou. Since then he has not had a relapse until a three weeks ago.”

“That’s… about thirty years.”

“Perhaps.” Retsu decided to end the cautious dancing. “What do you really wish to ask, Yoruichi-san?”

Yoruichi looked carefully at her. When she spoke, her words sounded rehearsed. “I know a long time has passed, and after what happened today, it’ll seem unimportant to you.” She took an uncharacteristic inhale as if preparing for a dreaded confrontation. “I didn’t realise I was intruding into your relationship with him. By the time I understood, it was too late and I’d hurt you. I’ve always wanted to apologise to you but I feared your reaction. We’ve a second chance now, and I want to say I’m truly sorry.”

The unexpected confession caught Retsu off guard.

Golden eyes observed her intently, then realization dawned in them. “Oh kami, I should’ve realised sooner. You still love him.”

Retsu did not deny it. But she was piqued enough to counter, “And you have ceased loving him? For however much you ever did.”

“I loved him,” Yoruichi defended, suddenly fierce. Then she softened just as quickly. “I know how it must have looked. The notorious Shihouin Yoruichi toying with a legend far above her power and playing with fire. In his case, lightning. But I loved him in my own way. And I hurt him leaving without a word.” She looked earnestly at Retsu. “My only defence is that we can’t escape our true natures. This is what makes shinigami so strong. Mine is a fickle one. And it loved his unpredictable one as much as two so different souls could ever love each other.”

Retsu realised she would have to say something. And with the centuries between them, there was no longer any point in obfuscation. “You are mistaken, Yoruichi-san. His is not an inconstant nature. We cannot understand his power by our conventional concepts. He is born with something so vast and unruly that it requires every reishi of his will every moment of his life to control it. And to do that he must have an anchor or that power will be unleashed without limits and destroy the entire realm. We were living in a tumultuous time, and during that time the true half of his soul could not be fully present for him. I was his anchor, whenever Kyouraku could not be.”

Seeing understanding begin to dawn on Yoruichi’s face, she went on. “I was indeed upset when I discovered your liaisons with him, but not for the reasons you thought. My anger is my personal issue and has nothing to do with you or him. Jyuushirou-kun is more than capable of looking after himself. Do you even understand what love means to him? You could not have possibly hurt him. Disappointed him, perhaps, but not harmed him. He correctly perceived your nature from the first day you entered the Gotei. If you felt love from him, that is because he returned your love in the same measure you gave him. You were never near enough to hurt him, because he never let his heart be near to you. That is his balance.”

“I… see.”

 _Does she really?_ Retsu questioned silently.

[ _Eventually she will._ ]

“What I had with Jyuushirou-kun was a long time ago, Yoruichi-san. Long before you were born. I always understood why he could not give me his whole heart, and I was contented with what he could. If what you offered was enough for him, then it was enough for me. I bear you no ill will.”

Yoruichi silently absorbed her words and lowered her head. “You shame me, Retsu-sama.”

“Truth hurts. But like the sting of a dagger, it passes quickly.” Retsu turned away to complete the assembly of the sensor. Absently, she added, “If you wish to see him, you may wait outside this room. I am expecting him for a medical examination.”

“Thank you.” There was a pause, then a soft clinking sound.

Curious, Retsu turned again in time to see the dark-skinned woman extract something from the cabinet which had remained opened behind her. When she turned to face Retsu again, her golden eyes were curious as she held up two delicate glass bottles, the sparkling pale blue and green liquids within contrasting like starlight against her dark hands.

“I noticed these were freshly brewed. You decided to try my recipe only after _three centuries_?”

A century or a more meant little to a soul who had lived for several millennia. But Retsu decided not to answer. Resting the now ready sensor on the countertop, she walked towards her former colleague, reached around her and firmly shut the cabinet door. Then very carefully she took the two bottles into her own hands. She spent a moment to look at the finely made receptacles, committing them to her memory.

Each of the glass bottle bore on its gently curved surface a delicately embossed carp leaping against a suggestion of a wave. The bottles were wrought by a long deceased master glassblower, and once upon a time, they had been quietly left as a gift on her lacquered dresser, one after another, filled with a particular blend of flower essences that she most favoured. She had ceased wearing perfume a long time ago, but had always kept these two empty bottles as mementos.

They now contained a potent medicine.

“Will they truly work?” she asked, looking up at the potions’ creator.

“If you’re asking whether it’ll work on an ordinary shinigami, I’ll say of course, and perhaps feel insulted that you even ask such a question.” Golden eyes observed her closely. “But for him, I can only advise you to try it and adjust the formula as you go along.”

Retsu gently placed the delicate bottles on the tray below the cabinet, together with other bottles of medicines. The twin glass pair glittered and sparkled like stars among the dull and muddy appearances of their neighbours.

A small trickle of a familiar reiatsu entered the periphery of her senses, like a thin stream heralding an impending ocean. Acknowledging the trickle with a viscous drop of her own reiatsu, Retsu cast a sideways look at Yoruichi and saw that her former colleague remained oblivious. As she had said, she still could not sense the elders.

She decided to ask one last question. “How did you persuade your clan to loan the shield?”

A sudden look of mischief crossed the fine dark-skinned face. “If I told you, I’ll have to kill you.”

Retsu merely waited expectantly.

Yoruichi relented with a wry grin. “I guess I owe you one. Suffice to say, my brother loves me more than I deserve and he’ll do anything I tell him to. Even after a hundred years.”

“Why did you choose Jyuushirou-kun?”

“It takes a Kidou Hanshi-Master to break the seal. But more importantly it takes one who has the knowledge to see that something was very wrong, and the courage to act alone to stop a terrible mistake which no one else was seeing.”

“He was not alone.”

“Ah, yes. Well, when it comes to that pair, convincing one is as good as convincing the other.” Yoruichi smiled wryly.

Retsu had to smile. “That often seems to be true. I assumed you have seen Yamamoto-sama to inform him of this.”

“I went to him straight. There was no way Soi Fon and I could conceal our reiatsu from Genji-sama, so I didn’t even bother.” Yoruichi suddenly smiled. “This won’t be the last time you’ll be seeing me, Retsu-sama. I’m afraid I’ve been commanded to report in regularly.”

“Unofficially, of course.”

“Of course.”

The small reiatsu stream touched Retsu again, and she returned another of her viscous drop, more of a tap this time, urging speed.

“Next time I return, perhaps I’ll bring you some of that new cosmetics that’s all the rage in the Living World,” Yoruichi was saying amiably, then suddenly her eyes whipped to the door, before whipping back to her again. “He’s coming.”

Without a word, Retsu walked towards the linen cupboard. The watery stream of reiatsu was drawing rapidly closer. Opening the cupboard doors, she began searching. She did not see many patients over six feet tall, so the hospital yukata she kept for her tall patients were easy to find. She withdrew a particular one, made with the standard light green fabric but so faded and worn over the centuries that it would be the most comfortable one on what she knew was very sensitive skin. Draping it over her arm, she closed the cupboard and turned to her visitor. “Perhaps there is one more thing I can share with you, to ease your concern. I finally convinced him to take the examinations shortly after you left. He is now formally a Hanshi Healer, even though he attained that level of skill many centuries ago. I do not know what changed his mind, I am only happy that he did.”

“That’s great!” Yoruichi’s smile this time was broad, genuinely happy. “He was already long overdue for that title when I knew him. I’m glad you persuaded him where I couldn’t.”

“His reasons for healing are very different from mine. He ends with healing the hurt, nothing more. In this aspect, Kyouraku is more similar to me even though I never taught that one anything more than field kaidou.” As the fond memory rose, she shared, “You should have seen the board of examiners during his tests. Half of them almost prostrated themselves at his feet, the other half was rushing to just give him the title and tell him to leave.”

When Yoruichi broke out laughing her trademark throaty laugh, Retsu found it in herself to join her, and realised with a start that without her conscious knowledge her own heart had forgiven her former sister-in-arms.

It was in the midst of their shared laughter and newfound camaraderie that the door opened without a knock and the tall form of Jyuushirou-kun entered, long white hair slightly windblown, skin aglow with new colour from the rich evening meal. His dark eyes, however, were expectant as they immediately latched onto Yoruichi with uncharacteristic guardedness.

# # # # # # 

“Ukitake.” Yoruichi wore her infamous roguish half-smile, yet her voice held that soft tenderness that Retsu suddenly understood was reserved for Jyuushirou-kun.

“Yoruichi,” Jyuushirou-kun returned with a slight nod, his expression and his mahogany eyes calm. “I see you prefer to talk here rather than join us in the mess hall.” His manner was unusually closed, and despite the new colour in his fair skin, clear weariness lined his pale features. As he silently closed the door behind him, he cast a sideways glance to Retsu. “Senpai, I am here, as instructed.”

“Ai, I should’ve known you’d notice my spying,” exclaimed Yoruichi with mock dismay, her golden eyes showing not the slightest bit of embarrassment at being caught. “But you’re just in time, we’re just done with our girl talk.” She glanced conspiratorially at Retsu with one twinkling golden eye. Then with another of her mercurial shifts, her humour vanished and solemnly, softly, she said, “You’re looking well. I’m glad you broke the seal in time. It didn’t take up too much of your power, I hope.”

“It was not difficult,” he replied simply without answering the other half of her question. A slight crease appeared between his brows. “It is, however, unnecessarily complicated, if you do not mind me saying. I was almost late.”

Yoruichi spread her hands helplessly. “The seal is layered on generation after generation by different Kidou Masters. No one really looked at how each layer interlocks, and maintenance fell to the wayside. Maintenance has never been needed.”

“Until now.”

“Hai,” she agreed grimly. “Even the Shihouin Clan has fallen into complacency. Something I intend to correct, since Aizen is now at large.” She looked at him hopefully. “Perhaps if I asked my brother to let you have a look at it…?”

“I suppose I could assist to revise it, make it simpler with the same effect,” he said carefully.

“Then I’ll inform my brother tomorrow, many thanks.” Yoruichi clearly ignored his cautious tone. Instead, her eyes scanned him from top to toe, visibly warming and yet saddened at the same time. “It’s been too long. I’m sorry I left without a word. Seeing you again yesterday… are you angry at me?”

Despite the fresh energy in his colour, Jyuushirou-kun suddenly looked weary and his long fingers rose to massage his forehead. “Yoruichi, there is little purpose in raking up the past. Whatever that had happened before, I forgave you the moment I found your clan member in my meditation room with the shield.”

“I… thank you again.” She surveyed him, then picked up her jar of herbs and walked towards him, her steps light and stealthy as a feline.

He backed away involuntarily as she drew close, his expression and eyes holding a slight warning. Noting his unconscious reaction, Yoruichi paused and stared up at him, her golden eyes skimming over his face and hair, then tracing the silken white tresses fallen over his shoulder. Raising slim dark fingers she touched his soft strands. “You’re finally wearing it loose,” she murmured, before reaching up and gently placing her fingertips under his pale square chin. “And you’re even more beautiful than before. Maturity suits you.”

Carefully, he placed his own white fingers over her dark ones and moved her hand away from his face. “It has been a long time, Yoruichi,” he said gently, but with a note of finality.

“So it has been.” Golden eyes briefly sent Retsu a silent apology, then returned to Jyuushirou-kun. “It’s important that I hear your take on Ichigo. But not tonight. Even I can see how tired you are. I’ll find you tomorrow.” Turning back to Retsu, the former Shihouin clan head said warmly, “And I know you’ll take good care of him, Retsu-sama. Goodnight. I’ll try to drop by again before I depart for the Living World. Do think about what I can bring for you on my next trip back.” Without another word, the svelte woman left the examination room as silently and unobtrusively as the creature form she often wore.

Retsu watched her exit with mixed feelings, with not a little envy at her former colleague and sadness for herself. Despite her upbringing as a Shihouin princess, Yoruichi had never been as bound by proprieties as Retsu was, and could openly express what she felt, whenever she felt.

When the door closed, Jyuushirou-kun turned to her, perplexed. “Her next trip back?” There was a slight dread in his dark eyes.

“Yamamoto-sama wished for her to regularly report in,” Retsu explained, holding out the hospital yukata on her arm. “She seems to share my reservations about the powers of our new human allies.”

He accepted the soft garment with a rueful look. “Then I suppose Kyouraku and I will be next in her line of interrogation.” Shaking his head to himself, he moved to the corner of the room in two long strides where she kept a generic sword stand for her patients, then slid his zanpakutou from his white obi. Gently, he leaned the length of his tachi on the stand, his long fingers fondly brushing down its hilt. “I suppose you have already discussed with her?” he asked with a questioning glance.

“Yes,” Retsu confirmed. “But I prefer that you share your perspectives with her before we compare notes.”

“Or perhaps we should all compare notes together at tea with Genryuusai-sensei tomorrow evening,” he suggested.

“Good idea. That will save us precious time.” She paused, then inquired, “And I expect Yamamoto-sama will finally share with us the developments he spoke of today?”

He looked at her with uncertainty in his expression. “I hope so. It has never sat well with me to keep it from Kyouraku and you, but I am sworn to secrecy…”

“I shall ask him tomorrow if he does not share,” she assured, letting her determination show. “He commandeered your time and energies at great cost to your health for three centuries. He must have a good reason to do so.”

“Sensei had no choice, Senpai,” he sighed. “Please believe me. Kyouraku has ever always been on our case about this… because of me he has become quarrelsome with Sensei these past three hundred years. I do not wish for you to follow his path.”

She smiled comfortingly. “You must trust that I know Yamamoto-sama far better than Kyouraku does.”

His dark eyes looked at her for a heartbeat, then he smiled with contrition. “That, you do.” A flash of regret abruptly stole across his fine features. “Just now… I am sorry you had to witness Yoruichi’s forward behaviour,” he apologised softly.

“Like you said, Jyuushirou-kun, it has been a long time,” she gently dismissed the issue. “Besides, she and I reached a new understanding tonight.” Gesturing at the changing screen, she invited, “Please change, I am ready for you.”

With a last look at her, he quietly went behind the changing screen. It covered his height completely with a full foot to spare, for she had it constructed specifically to accommodate the tallest of her patients, who was Zaraki. As the soft rustle of fabric began, she turned to prepare the examination bed and monitor for him, carefully moving the reishi sensor from the countertop to the bedside cabinet and connecting it to the display above. A soft billowing sound reached her and in the reflection of the display screen, she saw his white and crimson haori fling over the top of the screen, its snowdrop emblem and characters for the number thirteen lying obliquely across the wooden slats. Then the emblem was obscured by white loops of standard issue obi.

“Ichigo-kun and his friends have decided on different independent activities tomorrow.” His voice sounded momentarily a little muffled, then a black kosode was flung over the top, over the haori. Another rustle, and a white shitagi covered the black garment. “I will have my hands full making sure they are well attended to while preparing the Senkaimon.” Finally a black hakama billowed over the top, together with a strip of black fundoshi and a pair of white tabi. “They are leaving on the morning after tomorrow.”

“So soon?” Retsu turned.

Jyuushirou-kun emerged from behind the screen, wrapped in the light green hospital yukata, its belt tied low on his waist, its lapels parted loosely halfway down his chest. His long white hair was tousled messily over his shoulders, the dent between his clavicles and the defined cleft between his pectorals peeking from beneath silken tangles. His long narrow feet were bare according to hospital examination room regulations.

“It has something to do with a slight time distortion in the Dangai.” Faint bluish veins flexed on the high pale arches of his feet as he walked towards the examination bed. “I estimate that for them, almost a month has passed since they left home. They miss it and wish to return. Something about a summer break being almost over. I eventually understood they meant their summer school vacation.”

“Such different terms they use,” Retsu mused. “I suppose Yoruichi will leave with them.”

“Yes, she will.” He sat on the examination bed, his long legs draping down and his feet resting on the floor when most patients would be dangling their feet in the air. “I should have known she was living with Kisuke in Karakura Town,” he said quietly, looking absently at the reishi sensor.

Retsu decided to allow him a private moment and busied herself with switching on the reishi sensor and the monitor display. The screen flickered blue and then showed a blurry image akin to what the eyes would perceive when looking at something too closely. Then she turned to her last patient of the day.

He was lost in thoughts, his dark eyes distant. Wordlessly, she held the front of his yukata and began pushing the fabric apart, her gentle ministrations startling him. His gaze refocused, and cooperatively, he shrugged slightly to aid her as she slid the soft fabric across his alabaster chest and down the wide sloping slant of his slender shoulders. The robe whispered down his supple biceps to pool around his elbows, its soft folds covering his hands. With feather light touches, she brushed the lustrous lengths of his mussed hair over his shoulders so that she could have an unobstructed view of his torso, and as she did so her eyes reflexively fell upon the faint, thin scar that ran vertically from the cleft between his firm pectorals down the fine supple line of his abdominal muscles, ending a palm’s width above the small indent of his light coloured navel. Her mind flashed to the old terrifying memory of a thin pale comatose thirteen-year-old bleeding on her makeshift pallet as she desperately saved his life in a camp within a derelict shrine. Involuntarily, her hand followed her memory and her fingertips traced the scar from his chest to his navel.

His larger, paler hand rose and covered hers, gently holding her fingers against his chest. His skin was a warm silk, gently rising and falling with his respirations. When she looked up, she saw understanding and gratitude in his dark eyes. After two thousand years, words were often unnecessary between them, her light touch over his old scar telling him that she was remembering that long ago dark night, and his comforting hand over hers informing her in turn that he knew and appreciated.

A part of her would always regard him as that ill vulnerable youth. Perhaps it was Yoruichi’s influence, or perhaps it was Retsu’s own new heightened state of being, for she found herself giving in to physical temptation for the first time in ten centuries, raising her other hand and cupping her fingers and palm over one side of his fine angular face, cradling his high cheekbone and clean, defined jawline, her thumb stroking the silky softness of his hairless skin as her eyes traced his adult features.

Surprised, he momentarily allowed her touch, unresisting as she stroked her thumb over the pale pink of his finely sculpted lips.

She had missed seeing the minute changes Yoruichi noticed, simply because Retsu saw him almost every day.

He truly had become even more beautiful with maturity. Still the gentle poetic scholar and elegant warrior he always was, his classical delicate masculinity now wore a quiet nobility and vulnerable strength. His skin was still incredibly fine and smooth, still completely unmarred and unblemished after all this time, soft and tender as a toddler’s as though arrested in its development while the rest of him aged. Yet it was his eyes which had changed the most; they were still the same dark mahogany but now imbued with the deep light of millennia of knowledge and experience, framed beneath long black lashes and long black brows that arched into his temples.

“When one becomes a sensei for a day, one becomes a parent for life,” she echoed his earlier words of that day and, not for the first time, gently told him, “Though you still test my control to merely remain as your parent, Jyuushirou-kun.”

And as he had always responded to her intimate regard ever since they parted, he wordlessly held her gaze with an old gentle love and a deep apology.

She gently released his face, stroking a finger down his straight patrician nose once. Then pulling her hand from his chest, she withdrew completely. Saying nothing more, she gathered the soft folds of the robe about his waist and with a gentle tug, opened the yukata the rest of the way. The robe fell down low, exposing his tapering torso to his narrow hip bones.

Her eyes immediately rested on the wide swathe of fading yellow discolouring his right side from beneath his right pectoral to above his right hip. The bruising was already rapidly vanishing into the creamy alabaster of his skin, at a speed that told her it would be gone by the morning. But there was a distinct handprint spanning his lower liver and right kidney that exactly matched the size and shape of Yamamoto-sama’s left hand.

The position of the handprint suddenly roused a streak of anger in her, and immediately, a strong suspicion arose.

Without immediate surgery, a ruptured liver would cause immediate toxicity and result in an agonising death from internal exsanguination. If further stressed by a ruptured kidney, immediate coma would result from instant toxic shock. This was basic biology knowledge that accompanied all kaidou lessons, Yamamoto-sama knew this, and Jyuushirou-kun had no excuse at all not to have a deep understanding of it.

The blow should have immediately incapacitated him. Yet he had continued to fight alongside Kyouraku as their sensei prolonged their entanglement, left the battle under his own power, and then stood for hours until Yamamoto-sama healed him with his fiery brand of treatment.

“Hold still,” she ordered. Reaching for the reishi sensor, she picked up its wand and held it over the top edge of the bruise. Unfurling a little reiatsu into the contact pads of the wand handle, the instrument began to glow white and softly hum. As she slowly moved the wand down the bruise towards his right hip, she sent her reiatsu into the wand with a fine control, feeling the instrument shape and deliver her reiryoku into his torso in a hairline thin penetrating field. Upon contact with the reishi of his body, the field stimulated his internal organs and immediately their live images flickered on the display monitor. Watching the screen, Retsu slowly passed the wand downwards, her eyes observing every detail of his liver and right kidney, then his other organs, seeing only normality. There was not a single contusion, no sign of any haemorrhage, much less any rupture. The only damage revealed were a few freshly healed hairline cracks on his lowest two right ribs. Passing the wand over him once more while keenly studying the live images, and again finding no sign of damage, she switched off the instrument and laid it aside.

Facing him, she raised both palms and channelling her reiryoku, summoned the highest level of invasive scanning spell, then without warning, plunged it into his diaphragm.

His reiatsu rose in instinctive defence. At her quelling look, he willed it down to let her enter.

Immediately, she sensed his reiryoku, its unique undulating frequency ebbing and flowing at slightly below his normal resting rate, its strength noticeably replenished with the aid of the restoring spell she had implanted earlier and the nourishing evening meal he had partaken. He would be returned to full strength by the morning. There was a lingering burning trace of the reiatsu signature of Yamamoto-sama which would soon be gone. Otherwise, the familiar waves and currents of his reiryoku heaved with depthless power and brought a salty ozone tang to her tongue and breath, as familiar to her as her own power. And beneath, she could feel a black formless force roiling deep within his chest cavity in tandem with his natural force, silent, secret, concealed to all except the most invasive kaidou scans, and utterly inexplicable.

She faded her spell and stepped back, folding her hands into her sleeves and trained her gaze steadily on him.

“There is no damage,” she calmly pronounced. “Yamamoto-sama fractured two of your lowest right ribs, but he healed them. The bruising will disappear by the morning, even now they already look paler. But, Jyuushirou-kun, you knew all these already.”

Jyuushirou-kun nodded in concurrence with her assessment, his dark eyes cautious.

“That blow should have ruptured your liver and kidney and crippled you instantly. Kyouraku should have been bringing you to me in a panic, or sustain heavy injuries himself protecting you from Yamamoto-sama. Yet both of you emerged with only a scratch each and in your case, with merely that bruise and two cracked ribs in addition.”

“I was prepared. I repelled the blow with my reiatsu. Besides, Genryuusai-sensei was delaying.”

She nodded. “These are all logical and reasonable explanations. However, you forget one important thing.” She paused, searching for a new approach to broach the millennia old issue standing unresolved between them. Finally, she decided to steal two techniques she had often observed him employ with great success. “I have healed you, cared for you, taught you, loved you, and be your friend, family and lover in the two thousand years we have known each other. I have seen and been intimate with every part of you. Therefore I am absolutely correct when I say that since the day Yamamoto-sama found you, he had never intentionally inflicted on you any injury more severe than a light bruise or cut. He treats you with a delicacy that he never shows to any other. Yet today he delivered a blow that by all logic, should have crippled you but it did not, yet neither was he in a hurry to heal you. On the contrary, he was so confident that you would not be seriously injured and would last until his final reckoning, that if I had not asked Isane to announce Aizen’s betrayal to all, the battle between the three of you would have continued at Yamamoto-sama’s leisure and perhaps, even until now.”

He listened intently as she spoke, his dark eyes calm as he appeared to be following her reasoning.

“Yamamoto-sama’s extreme confidence in your ability to remain largely unscathed by such a blow tells me that he knew you had the power to counter it. However, the last time I checked, his power is so far above yours that a blow from him that leaves behind a handprint like that cannot possibly leave your organs intact. Yet it has.” She paused, then concluded. “There is something else inside you protecting you, as I have always suspected. I now have irrefutable proof.”

A defensive expression began to cross his face as he involuntarily gathered the robes up to cover himself, unconsciously wishing to hide his injury from her scrutiny.

Retsu gazed at him neutrally, then moved around the examination bed, reaching the countertop where the tray of medicines was resting. Gently, carefully, she picked up the two delicate bottles of the Shihouin potions. Returning to stand before him, she quietly held out the small twin carafes.

His dark eyes lit with immediate recognition when he saw them, instantly dissolving his defensiveness. Carefully, he accepted the sparkling bottles as she placed them in his larger palms. They were small in his long narrow hands as he gently rolled them with curiosity, sending the glass softly clinking as the clear pale blue and pale green liquids produced gaseous bubbles with the small movements such that they looked like liquid starlight rolling on his pale palms.

Allowing her emotions to seep into her words, she allowed her voice to descend into the intimate tone she once used when she was still sharing his bed. “I know how much you hate having to leave your division quarters for extended periods.” Lightly, she stroked each finely embossed carp with her fingertip. “Begin with one dose every night. Put one drop from each bottle into a teapot of fresh spring water, boil it, and drink the whole pot before you sleep. After one month, reduce to one dose every two nights. After the next month, one dose every three nights. And so on. You may dilute its taste with honey if you wish. Record your symptoms as you progress. When you have consumed three-quarters of each bottle, come see me and we shall study the effects together. If need be, I will adjust the recipe for the new batch.”

“What are they?” His voice was slightly choked.

“Yoruichi’s recipe. She shared them with me three centuries before. I never attempted to try them until three weeks ago.”

“Yoruichi? Three weeks ago…” He trailed off as he looked up at her, realisation in his expression as he connected the timeframe with his move back to the Ugendou.

“You have not had a prolonged spell for three decades. Being struck down again after such a long healthy reprieve must have been difficult to accept. It prompted me to try something new,” she explained.

Nodding, he carefully placed the bottles on the bedside countertop and without looking at her, commented, “You kept the bottles.”

“I cherished them greatly,” she confessed.

“But it has been a thousand years,” he whispered, his voice low, humbled, awed, and audibly moved.

It was the opening she was waiting for. Reaching out, she gently took his chin and turned his face towards her. His dark eyes were deep with remembered emotions, his angular beautiful face bearing a solemn fragility that stole her breath. She wondered if Yoruichi had noticed this too, or if he only let down his guard and allowed Retsu to see this aspect of him when they were alone.

“I never stopped loving you, no kimi,” she murmured the confession for the first time since they parted ways, using her private address for him. “I think you know that, though we never spoke of it. I am beseeching you now out of my love for you. There is a power within you, beneath your own vast power, and it has always obstructed all my attempts to heal you of your lung disease. I have always respected your wish that I do not know of this alien power. It hurts me, but I never pursued you for the truth because that is what you wish. But tonight, my soul is reawakened. There is a foreboding in the air, and I know you sense this too. You sense such things far more acutely than any of us. A terrible storm is coming that we do not yet know of. We nearly lost you a thousand years ago, because I did not know how to save you. If you ever loved me at all, please do not keep me in the dark any longer. I fear something even worse awaits us and I need to know how to treat you should you fall into injuries or worse.”

His eyes darkened with guilt. “Senpai, I-”

She pressed her fingertips over his mouth, silencing the rest of his words. He stilled for a heartbeat, then as he always had, quietly submitted beneath her physical touch. Yet his eyes remained wide with something broken and fearful. His lips beneath her fingers were a soft fine velvet, warm with his breaths. She longed to taste him, to relive what she used to have, but despite her yearning and new resolution to seize whichever opportunity that came, she remembered the wordless old gentle love and deep apology in his dark eyes that said everything he could not.

And she realised, to the reishi of her very bones, that she no longer had a place to lay any claim on him.

He was no longer a young soul, bereft from the loss of his other half of his heart. He had attained a legendary status through his own hard work and sacrifice, and had gone on to instruct and groom some of the finest shinigami the Gotei had ever seen. He was still gentle, still giving, still submissive to her, but there was an oldness in him now, and a bleak hardness.

Removing her hand, she stepped back from him, and willing a finality to her extremities, turned to the bedside table and began turning off the machines and putting things away.

“It is late,” she told him softly. “Please rest. Kyouraku must be getting impatient.”

There was a silence from him, then a soft rustle of fabric as he stood, and a soft clinking as he gathered up the twin bottles of potions. With barely audible footsteps, he walked away to the changing screen.

Retsu listened to the soft sounds of fabric as he redressed, her movements sure and unerring out of long practice as she tidied up and returned the sensor back to its disassembled state in its drawer. Shortly after, she heard the slightly brushing steps of waraji shoed feet, the sound of a long sheath sliding into an obi, and the click of the door opening. There was a pause, and then softly, he said, “Goodnight, Senpai. I will think on your words.”

In reply, she nodded, not turning as she heard him leave and quietly shut the door behind him. 

# # # # # #

Tonight the moon was a perfectly round silver disc descending into the western night sky. Its light was brilliant, a white that bleached all colour from the Seireitei save for dark shades and shadows. Minazuki yearned restlessly from her bedroom behind her, where she had lain it next to her bed. It had gone strangely silent, and she knew she would need to go into a proper jinzen as soon as possible to speak with her zanpakutou.

The hope of finally receiving the truth lit like a slowly brightening light at the end of a two thousand year long tunnel. She felt an internal seal begin to peel aside. Once, a thousand years ago, a moonlit night like this would lure her to a pavilion lake house in the middle of a small mirror smooth bed where she would spend the night in dark silk sheets entwined with a pale elegant body gilded with nothing but their sweat and his soft peony musk and gleaming mass of silken white hair. Those nights were long past, leaving her only with memories undimmed by time.

And she understood, as the moon lowered towards the western horizon, that while memories were often tempting, and the recollections of the flesh and senses always irresistible, souls changed. Even elder souls as long lived as theirs. What they had, was what they had. To have it again, would not be the same.

Panicked thudding footfalls interrupted her reverie. Isane appeared around the column of her verandah, dishevelled, eyes haunted. She looked towards Retsu beseechingly.

Wordlessly, Retsu shifted her cup of still warm tea to the space next to her. She returned her gaze to the moon as Isane settled down quietly beside her, her nerves starting to settle almost audibly as she sipped the comforting brew to chase away the last vestiges of her strange nightmare.

More memories flowed across Retsu’s soul, vivid, well-loved memories of dark still youthful mahogany eyes fluttering closed with passion, of soft peony masculine musk lingering on her breaths, of long silken white hair trailing upon silken white skin, and she revelled in discreet joy as she watched them merge into the luminescence of the moon.

___________________________________

END PART 2 OF ' _IN ALL, BUT BLOOD_ '

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> NEXT IN PART 3: Enters main protagonist Kyouraku Shunsui! As the plot thickens, see through his eyes the Gotei, Yamamoto, Unohana, and last but not least, his beloved Ukitake.

**Author's Note:**

> **ON CONTINUING UPDATES:**
> 
> Experts say writing good stories should start with a good ending, then fit in a beginning and a middle to that ending and progress in a linear fashion. But developing this spin-off is more like painting, beginning with skeleton sketches, filling in the base colours, then going over and over each part with more dabs and nuances of colours to build up details and realism. Thus, published parts and chapters will continually be edited and refined until the final part is concluded. If you like this work, best is to bookmark and check back often, or subscribe to get the latest updates. When this series is done, a good illustrator is needed to publish all parts as one single full-length English language dōjinshi novella.
> 
> **THE DISCLAIMER I HATE TO WRITE BUT HAVE TO:**
> 
> Please refer to Series Notes [here](https://archiveofourown.org/series/1201744).


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